


Of Gods & Goddesses

by whitewolfbumble



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Hades and Persephone Mythology Fusion, Avengers as Greek Gods, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky as Persephone, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff, Mild Blood, Minor Violence, Reader as Hades, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2019-10-09 15:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 87,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17409182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitewolfbumble/pseuds/whitewolfbumble
Summary: "The connection was immediate and the mystery behind Bucky Barnes ran deeper and deadlier than you thought. Falling in love has never been this complicated, for a goddess or otherwise."A story with the modern reimagining of Hades and Persephone, with Bucky, the God of Spring and you, the Goddess of the Underworld.





	1. The Party

The party was as lively as ever, the guests a display gods and goddesses, showing off their opulence and grandeur as only they could. A black sky with white stars was the backdrop to this soiree inside, the warm glow of the party spilling out from the Stark Tower and down to the city far below.

It was the usual decadence, with glittering dresses and top shelf alcohol both flowing. The suits were cut and tailored, as prim as all those here feigned to be. The pale champagne in every delicate flute was as bubbly and light as the laughter that sounded in every corner, though the only the former was real.

“You could _pretend_ to have fun here,” whispered Natasha in your ear, coming up from along the bar. A drink was place in your hand and you took a sip absently, eyes still out on the crowd from your little corner of the marble-topped bar, crowded with delighted party-goers.

“I do like these… parties,” you said, reasoning it was somewhat true. 

You could admit you did always enjoy the good quality champagne Tony imported in, taking another sip of the smooth liquid Nat had given you. It at least helped to pass the time more pleasantly until it was a reasonable hour to say your goodbyes and head home.

“Please, your face looks darker than your _attitude_ usually is,” she said into her glass, taking a delicate sip of her whiskey with those all-too innocent eyes just above the crystal rim. Hard to pull off with her devilishly thick lashes and black winged eyeliner, but she did it.

You huffed and turned to her, knowing she was just trying to get a rise out of you like always. But again, like always, you fell into her trap anyway. Hardly your fault though; she was the Goddess of Strategy, Wisdom, and Warfare. Leave it to her to wheedle anyone into revealing anything.

“I’m having fun, Natasha, but thank you for checking up on me,” you said, clipped and mouth setting into a bit of a frown.

This conversation, or at least the underlying intention of it, happened about every month, coinciding with this parties Tony insisted on throwing. Natasha always tried to goad you into dancing or mingling or pretending to have more fun than you probably could at these things. Sure, it was all to get you to loosen up and relax for a change, but this was _not_ your version of relaxing.

Your home was a tad darker, quieter, softer than this, and had the added benefit of not needing sky-high heels and constricting floor-length gowns. Everything here was rather different, with a warm glow like gold had gilded every surface, every smile, every pair of gleaming eyes.

Just like fool’s gold.

You knew a fake when you saw it, and this room, however lavish, was full of them.

Everyone put on that mask of light and warmth, but underneath you felt the decay. Natasha had said- and Steve too on more than one occasion- that you it was simply more a reflection of your powers that caused you to view this world so. Always seeing the dead, hidden things underneath it all, and always judging people (intentionally or not).

Maybe that was true. But still, the reason why changed very little when it came down to it, the enchanting music and enchanted guests displayed like an open, boring book to you. After so many of these parties there wasn’t much to keep your interest.

So when you saw one dark figure muted and cold, you were stopped short.

Your champagne and friend beside you were forgotten, your eyebrow quirked and mind hummed with activity to clue in to who it was that caught your eye so.

He was taller than most here, built and admittedly beautiful. He was even more removed from the party than you, going so far as to stand out in the cool night air, separate and distant from the revelry inside.

He was leaning back against the railing, though looked anything but comfortable. In fact, he looked rather miserable. It was a kind of expression on him that looked practiced and familiar, eyes cast just slightly down along with the corners of his mouth. Eyelids blinked slow and almost weary in a way, big arms crossed tight against his chest.

But still, you felt it.

Just as you felt the supposed warmth and decay of those around you, you felt the stark contrast in that figure, that mystery god out there in the night.

He looked cold and miserable, and surprisingly full of _life_.

An impossibility to explain, you were drawn in like a curious moth to an out-of-place flame.

“Natasha,” you said to the woman beside you who was signalling the bartender for two more drinks. “Who’s that, over on the balcony there?”

Natasha followed your gaze, taking a moment to spot the man in question.

“That’s Bucky,” she said, whatever spell cast over you bypassing her completely. “He only just got back a few weeks ago.”

“Back?” you questioned, eyes roaming from his ocean blue eyes and long chestnut hair, both catching the soft glow of the silver moonbeams. “Back from where?”

“That’s complicated,” she said vaguely, sipping now on her fourth whiskey of the night, passing you one too. “We don’t know where he was or why he was there yet, but do know what he was doing.”

“Oh?”

“Adding a few extra names to your list of the dead, for starters,” she said, leaning back on the bar casually. “Which is only part of the mystery. His memory was wiped and was called the _Winter_ Soldier, believe it or not.”

She scoffed, finding something sardonically amusing that you didn’t quite understand.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked, turning to her.

“Well, it’s twistedly ironic and bit cruel, I think,” she responded, though not answering your question. At your confused looked and furrowed brow she carried on.

“He was called the Winter Soldier, set out by some taskmaster, ordered to kill people,” Natasha said. “But in actuality he’s the God of Spring, if you can believe it. That stone cold man is responsible for creating _life_ and _warmth_ and all that. Or least he’s supposed too.”

How hadn’t you heard of him before now? Maybe you should have mingled more at these parties, or at least visited the Tower more. But your work kept you busy, and it looked like Bucky had been part of the reason why.

“The Winter Soldier,” you whispered slowly, gaze glued back to the man standing alone. “Hmm, that’s all just awful.”

“Until he remembers more, there’s not much for Steve or the rest of us to do about it.” She took another sip. “Might as well get him back into the land of the living.”

“The God of Spring,” you again muttered absently to yourself, matching that description to the man verses the previous moniker.

Surprisingly they both fit: the cold, hard winter and the living, muted spring you both saw and felt. It was a juxtaposition and contrast that sparked something in you you couldn’t’ve remembered feeling before.

“Yeah, hardly your type,” she mused, a quick glance your way.

“Yeah,” you whispered, clutching on to the champagne flute in one hand and whiskey in the other, as though trying to use them both as anchors to keep from whisking over there. Or, for some reason you thought, whisking him away from this event completely.

He looked like he wanted to be here as much as you did, probably less so. You had friends like Natasha and familiarity of this routine. Plus, champagne. Bucky didn’t have any of that. 

Was that why the intrigue? The mere curiosity of a person out of place and the sympathy that came along with it? But that couldn’t explain the full extent of your captivation. Or the heat you felt on your skin, spreading across your chest and on your cheeks. How your eyes couldn’t stay off of him, memorizing every detail. How you could feel who was underneath that exterior.

Without a word you stepped off through the crowd, weaving in and out to reach this God of Spring, those two anchors in your hands not enough to hold you back. Because your mind was set. And gods help anything that got in your way of what you were set on.


	2. Whiskey & Champagne

The din of chatter and laughter and music was silenced as the door closed. The thick glass door was the only separation from him and as you crossed the threshold to the balcony, suddenly there was nothing.  There was nothing out here but you, him, and the cold night air.

Bucky stood, subtly eyeing you a moment, perhaps wondering if you were there to catch a breath of fresh air and a moment of quiet. Maybe he assumed you'd keep to one side and him the other, silent and separate.

But you didn’t hide your gaze or movement- how could you out here in with no crowd to mask you?- and headed directly for him. Bucky straightened instantly as your feet carried you closer, eyes and body shifting and Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

He knew who you were by looking at you. Everyone did. The Goddess of the Underworld and Riches? At the very least it was clear to see the jewels around your neck were real, brighter than the stars and their colour deeper than the night sky. Certainly no introduction needed.

“Good evening, I’m Y/N,” you said all the same, trying your best for a kind smile to the shifting man in front of you. “It’s a pleasure to meet you...?”

“Bucky,” he supplied with a nod, still awkwardly standing there.

You smiled, stepping up and offering him the whiskey from your hand, eyeing him as he reached for the glass slowly and with what looked to be a bit more suspicion than gratitude.

“It’s whiskey, not poison,” you said. “I may be the Goddess of the Underworld, but I’m not in the habit of filling vacancies myself.”

He nodded a thank you, words caught in his throat, perhaps not trusting the joke coming from a goddess like you. Though admittedly the joke _was_ just trying to elicit a response; anything to get him to speak again with that deep, velvet voice of his. It was a low sound, vibrating and humming in your ears, such unlike the light sounds of the party happening distantly behind you. It was gorgeous.

After a moment the whiskey glass rattled in his hand as he took it, making a hard clinking sound quite unlike skin.

“Metal?” you asked, a bit surprised as you saw the moonlight glint off the amber liquid and the silver hand wrapped around the crystal cup. Being the Goddess of Riches and knowing the sound and sight of precious metals, you were rather intrigued.

He nodded again at the assumption, face paling a bit in the moonlight.

“A cruel joke, giving a metal arm to a God of Spring,” he grimaced. “If it uh makes you uncomfortable, I can-”

“Please, I see people in far worse shape than you and quite regularly,” you shrugged easily. “Goddess of the Underworld, remember? I’m a hard one to scare.”

“Sorry,” he said, but you saw a slight upward pull at the corner of his mouth. Even the tiniest presence of a grin made your breath catch in your throat. It was like a flame, bright and brilliant. “Patchy memory, and all.”

You sipped your champagne as an excuse to swallow down your reaction to a bare hint of a smile from him. Even now he exuded that calm, breath of life. It was like an evening wind, smooth and soft, bringing in the sweet summer air.

Gods help you if he actually _did_ smile in truth.

“So, we hate metal, what else?” You leaned back on the railing, sipping your champagne again as you casually tried to pass off the absurd question.

Small talk was never your forte or favourite thing (as clearly displayed by _that_ question) but damn if you weren’t trying now. The drive to understand him, to figure out that intense pull you felt towards him was bubbling just below your surface. But for the love of everything, you spent most of your time talking to _dead_ people after all. How were you supposed to talk to a man with a light and life like his?

He pulled a face at the strange inquiry but you braced your soul as another slow smile crept up, growing with his words as he played along.

“The cold, I suppose,” he started, the toothy grin he sported for some reason making your heart beat in your chest like a drum. “Mint toothpaste too. And sugar packets. Waste of packaging and all that.”

As he spoke the words you felt that life and energy that was hidden away from the surface. It wasn’t frantic or crazed, but a slow, beautiful hum. It was like a flower unfurling for the first time, emerging from the frost.

“I suppose that’s why you're the God of Spring,” you mused, your eyes dancing in the moonlight with amusement as much as his. “Your abilities lie with ending winter so you probably wouldn’t like the cold much. And why have mint toothpaste when you must enjoy it in its leafy form far better?”

You pondered a moment looking to be deep in thought before turning back.

“Yeah, the sugar packet thing is just weird though.”

He turned away, hiding his smile with a sip of whiskey. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

“So tell me, why is the prodigal God of Spring outside in the cold than?”

“I could ask you that too?” he deflected, a sideways glance thrown your way as though he was testing the waters of questioning a high goddess. You welcomed it though. Anything to keep listening to him speak.

“Please, I’m hardly the _life_ of a party, if you’ll excuse the pun,” He didn’t though, relaxing back into the railing with a shadow of a crooked grin. “My invite here is out of courtesy and I accept it out of courtesy too.”

“You’re friends with Natasha though?” he ventured. “And I doubt you’re here out of mere politeness.”

“Oh, so you’re out here to spy on me, hmm?” you asked, teasing. “Should I be blushing or upset?”

He was the one to blush though, a heated and flustered look on his face as he fought to play it cool. Conversely you broke out into the biggest smile of the night, watching Bucky stumble through trying to backtrack.

“No no,” he quickly filled in, voice the slightest bit higher than his usual deep and gravelly tone. “I wasn’t staring, just observing. And not just you, I just- well, I’m trying to remember everyone.”

“Not to spoil the fun of deciphering everyone here,” you said jokingly, looking back into the gold room and gesturing with your champagne glass. You felt more than saw the embarrassed look fade into somewhat of a smile as the threat of an upset reaction that of mere teasing. “But we’re a dramatic, selfish bunch. Not worth memorizing if I do say.”

“Those I know, I don’t believe that of,” he contradicted. A far cry from the awkwardly shifting Bucky when you first encountered him, he leaned into you pointing into the crowd to one blonde haired god. It was as though the two of you were conspiring together, huddled in together and looking through the glass. “I wouldn’t be here without Steve or back in my own mind, however blank.”

“Terrible at poker though,” you whispered back with a smile. “Absolutely no poker face.”

“Abysmal,” he agreed before his eyes narrowed and he looked for the host of the party, Tony, wearing a velvet suit and looking completely hammered. Typical. “And Tony, the God of Metalworking and Fire? Well, I wouldn’t have a new, upgraded arm without him. Just showed up one day and gave it to me, completely out of the blue.”

“Yes, but now you’ve unknowingly agreed to these parties forevermore as payment,” you said, another little nip at your champagne. “Need I say more.”

“And Thor,” he pointed, knuckles brushing your fingers clasps around your glass as he pointed. It was like a jolt of life to your system and you were lucky for the railing supporting you. “He still welcomed me back into the fold after everything I’ve done.”

A beat passed before you shrugged.

“Okay, Thor’s alright,” you agreed, chuckling with Bucky as the intimate little bubble you shared together mixed in with that hazy, free feeling of slight intoxication. “He’s the fearless leader of this realm so I doubt I could say otherwise.”

You looked heaven-ward, the inky black sky clear of clouds and proudly displaying the full might of gleaming, distant stars.

“I’d fear a lightning bolt would strike me where I stand if I did,” you said, voice hushed and sporting an expression of mock seriousness.

He laughed; it was a low and honest and content kind of sound. “Well, I’d probably get hit too, so let’s just keep the trash-talking to a minimum, at least for tonight. I’m having far too good a time now to ruin it.”

“Well, me too,” you agreed, a warm smile on your face matching a warm feeling in your chest.

A calm settled into the cozy little space between the two of you, a little hum of contentment rolling through you and (by the soft, gentle expression on his face) Bucky. He was still watching the gods and goddesses inside, the faintest of golden light just touching his skin, giving him the softest ethereal glow. Slow blinks and slow sips and eased muscles; you could all but hold back from running your hands across his cheek, wanting to feel that life he personified under your fingertips.

In the next moment, you stopped, seeing movement you certainly hadn’t expected to see. You saw it before he realized what he was doing, the tendrils weaving through his hair, delicate and green. It was small little crown like a halo, wrapping around his head, the smallest white flowers blooming and little green leaves unfurling before your eyes.

It was mesmerizing.

You leaned into him, closing the distance between you and reached up, fingers delicately tracing those little white flowers, silky and delicate. Bucky stilled beside you, eyes locked onto yours as he realized, waiting with his breath held. He looked almost fearful behind those suddenly stony eyes.

“The God of Spring, hmm?” you whispered quietly.

“So they say,” he responded quietly, swallowing. “It’s coming back to me, slowly. I’m sorry I can’t control it.”

The fear was there but embarrassment took the reigns. It was rather unheard of for a god, even a lesser one, to not have a firm handle on their abilities. Dangerous even. But him like this, with a flower crown white and glowing like the moon, you could hardly count him as a danger at all.

“I don’t mind,” you said kindly, looking from those beautiful little creations back to the man himself. “It’s not as though you’re the keeper of _dead_ and are not in full control. At least you wouldn’t have an army of deceased souls roaming the streets.”

He looked down, hiding a smile but you heard a breathy chuckle escape his lips. You bit your lip, smiling more so at his reaction than your little joke. You felt that ease seep back into him and it lifted your heart more than you thought possible or certainly reasonable for an action so small.

He held out his flesh hand in the small space between you, a bright green stem and white flower growing and emerging as though from nowhere. It was just like that of his crown, a beautiful little thing, subtly glimmering white. As his fingers closed around the little stem, he passed it to you.

“Oh, I shouldn’t-” you started, but a tentative and gentle hand reached and took your own, placing the delicate flower in your palm.

“I haven’t received much kindness after everything I… well, let’s just say I don’t deserve it,” he said with a morose smile. “It’s the least I can give you in return.”

“Thank you,” you said quietly, a loss for words otherwise.

You knew what would happen as you looked down to that little flower, willing yourself to be anyone but who you were, if just for a moment.

But you wishes weren’t fulfilled. You watched as the thin little petals withered away to a dusty brown, crinkling and splitting.

They fell off silently, one by one in your palm, dead.

“I don’t mean to do that,” you said, voice barely heard. “Death is… well, let’s just say I don’t deserve a gift of life, I suppose.”

You had been so caught up in him that the reality of your own life was one you had however briefly forgotten. Because what were you doing with a god of life and renewal? It didn’t change you being the Goddess of the Underworld. It didn’t change that too close to someone like you and someone like him would wither.

You were the keeper of the dead and decay, worse than those still dancing and laughing just inside. Because there was no hiding you. No bright and glittery mask to keep hidden what was underneath.

What you were was a fool for thinking you could be otherwise. Could chat and laugh with a stranger you found drawn too. As though he would be drawn to you in the same way. He wouldn’t. No one would.

You put on a tight smile, waiting for Bucky to agree with your words and your unsaid thoughts and emotions, running rampant inside you. To regret giving you something so beautiful and full of life.

“No,” Bucky said, voice lower and eyes flitting in between yours. “I rather don’t think that at all, actually.”

Those blue eyes held a sea of emotion, the antithesis of your own, answering and admonishing what you were feeling. He wasn’t hurt or upset or felt as though his suspicions were confirmed. He looked… well, happy. The calmness and contentment mixed with a thousand others. But none were accusatory. None were harming. None were bored or put-off or wanting distance. Quite the opposite, it looked like.

Call it the intoxication of too much champagne, the thrill of instant connection with a stranger, the laughter and intimate moments shared with a soul you felt fit your own… Whatever it was though, for the briefest of moments, you drowned in it.

You reached for his hand without thinking but stopped just before you skin connected with his. You remembered yourself in that moment, snapping back from the waves of emotions and straightened up, stepping back from him towards the door.

“I should let you be, you probably came out here for a reason. I shouldn’t have interrupted,” you said quickly, clearing your throat. The moment was over and the confidence his look gave you was dashed. He wouldn’t want to hold your hand or touch you, not after seeing what you just did. “Thank you for the flower, truly.”

“Uh you’re welcome,” he said, stepping after you. “But you can repay me for it.”

That stopped you in your tracks.

“Oh,” you said confused. “Yeah, you’re- well, I mean, of course-”

“The next party we have,” he started, expression soft enough to just about melt you. “Meet me out here? I’ll have a glass of champagne ready for you next time, I promise.”

You stopped, expression softening under his gaze.

He wanted you to come back. _You_. Not out of “mere politeness” or fear or for any other reasonable reason. But because he wanted to see you again. You could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. It was simple. And it was extraordinary.

“Easiest promise I may ever make,” you responded slowly and with a smile. “I’ll be here, Bucky. ‘Til next time”

  



	3. Stealing Him Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Text messages are bolded here. Hope you enjoy this chapter!!

 

It was long into the night now, the halls of your home quiet as you padded barefoot down them, pajama-clad and cozy. Typically empty, you found yourself alone tonight as per usual, a mug of something warm in your hand and a rather dull ache in your chest.

Your home wasn’t a particularly lively place to begin with, but at night it did settle into a rather serene calm. The building itself was a thing of modernity: floor to ceiling windows, endless large rooms and long halls, grey and blue pressed concrete floors sealed with a clear coating like smooth glass.

It was what you would call a sanctuary (even if there was no particular love felt for this place), but tonight you fought the serenity of this place and the anxiety of what you were feeling by being here.

Because you wanted to be somewhere else. You _should_ be somewhere else.

You entered your office with sigh, feet carrying you in on autopilot. The room was two stories high and at least the size of Tony’s whole dance floor, but your unspoken feelings filled it up in a moment. One side was a wall of glass with full view of the night, and the other a wall of books and tomes and ancient texts, ladders of various heights attached to shelves here and there.

The decor besides was minimal (in here anyway). Just a large black desk with sleek lines and a low velvet desk chair with gold accents. It was supposed to be a place of focus after all.

With a creaky slide you pulled out your chair and huffed into it, pulling your knees up and taking a sip from your mug. Might as well try and drown your sorrows in work.

“Alright Veronica,” you said. “Show me the new case files.”

You tapped the black glass desktop, a quick burst of blue icons popping up as your workstation came to life. Your personal assistant and A.I. Veronica chimed to life with it, pulling up a projection of your email inbox, appearing in front of you. Despite working most of the day a number had already come up.

No rest for the dead apparently. Or you.

Your employees all had certain jobs- gods and goddesses with specific roles crucial in the running of the Underworld- but you were the only one who ruled it. Your days were filled with overseeing, tracking and checking, making the hard decisions and seeking balance above all. The tough cases came to you alone, those souls looking to repeal their assigned placement in the Underworld. It rarely ever worked in their favour but despite the grind you looked over every one personally.

And though you read through the case files, taping the screen and reading through the pleas and proposals, your head was not in the game. You looked across the desk, seeing the cause (or an associated one at least) as to why.

Sitting on the corner was a simple white vase, once with vibrate green and delicate white flowers filling it.

He had sent you flowers.

_You._

_Flowers._

When Pietro, the Messenger of the Gods and one of the few allowed on the grounds, dropped them off he looked as smug as you looked perplexed, your cheeks and chest practically on fire.

You knew Bucky grew them himself. He must have, every last detail the same as the single one he gave you that night on the balcony. There were dozen or two now though, the craft paper-wrapped bundle overflowing with a sweet, airy smell and moonbeam-like glow, tied up in black twine.

You swallowed, keeping your expression neutral (well, hopefully) and raised an eyebrow at Pietro. “I don’t think whoever sent these understands who they were sending them too.”

He merely shrugged, leaning a hip against your door frame. “Well, this is the fifth delivery of these today. Everyone’s getting them; I have three more to hand out once I leave here actually.”

Not only were you stunned by the admission but also at your reaction to it. Like a punch to the gut, you fought to stand straight against the pain of it. Despite your best efforts, your face must have fallen, and ashy look and disappointment starkly on display.

In a flash Pietro smiled, a cheeky look with a gleam in his ice blue eyes as he leaned just slightly closer.

“I was kidding, Y/N,” he said with a wink, the words bringing on another flash of heat to your face. You opened your mouth to protest or come up with something to say to that but he cut you off, stepping back. “And I think he knew exactly who he was sending these too and why.”

“Pietro,” you said, the word coming up like a kind of warning and a kind of pleading, but in a flash he was gone, just the faint and fleeting rippled of white streams in his wake.

So there they sat now, on your desk, unmoving under your stare.

The only white that remained from the bouquet was that of the envelope now. In small cursive was written your name in black ink. It was suspended there, caught up in the dried, withered petals and snagged on the brown, crispy leaves. A halo of dust and decay was surrounding the once beautiful bouquet, as even with you keeping your distance it still turned to ash.

But the envelope remained undamaged and unopened. You couldn’t bring yourself to read what was inside. You would at some point. Maybe.

You hoped there would be a joke written in it. Something light and funny that would let you shrug off the gesture as one of maybe mild teasing or of light friendship perhaps.

But what if it was less funny and more… well, _romantic_ maybe?

But he was the God of Spring after all, so maybe it meant nothing at all to get flowers from him...  Or maybe it meant more?

All you could agree on was that distance from him was good. It was what you needed to clear your head of the daze he put you under and the racing the mere thought of him brought up in your chest. And when you were clear-headed, throwing yourself back into work at all hours of the day and night, you understood some things and were distinctly reminded of others.

The fact was you weren’t built for romance. Yes, you spent your nights until the dawn light thinking of your first quiet moments with him under the stars. Yes, you could see that look in his beautiful blue eyes when he asked you to come back and see him again. Yes, your heart about lept when you saw the flowers. Yes, you would have been crushed if he had sent them to anyone else. And--

You rubbed your eyes and groaned. Gods, you had to stop thinking about it. You had to at least try and believe or maybe _convince_ yourself you weren’t built for romance.

Because what you were reminded of in the light of day was the reality of who you were and your situation. There was no room in your life for someone like him. He deserved after his trauma to heal. To rest. Maybe find someone that was lively and beautiful and actually able to appreciate him and his gifts, not a notch away from being essentially the antithesis of them. You just weren’t for him, pure and simple.

He was innocent (well, with a history of violence and death. But that wasn’t his fault). He was serene (with an anxious, awkward way about him). He was gentle like the spring sun (and cold like the winter wind). He was light, glowing like the moon across a glittering stream (with an edge of darkness like the night sky).

You related to too much of what he was, the darker half of him. But you were drawn to the pure light and life you saw in him too. They were both beautiful in their own regard and to be honest you had never met someone like him, and never felt the way you did about anyone else, much less so fast.

You stood up with a start, frustrated _again_ that you were having this conversation with yourself _again_. Your feet carried you to the edge of the large black desk, now within reach of that vase and those dead flowers.

Part of you wanted just to throw them out, as though they were the problem. But you didn’t move to do so, standing there, frowning at them instead.

A buzz sounded and you looked back towards the computer screen automatically, expecting to see another repeal case come in. Nothing had popped up so reflexively you reached for your phone, seeing the bright glow of a message.

 **Kinda rude you didn’t tell him** said a text from Nat.

You swallowed hard, shifting on your feet with a wince.

Because tonight was another of Tony’s parties. The first one since you last saw Bucky.

He had asked you to meet him.

You hadn’t.

You stayed here at home, wallowing and working and being frustrated with yourself and the whole situation. As Natasha painfully reminded you, you hadn’t even told him you weren’t going to be there either. Not that you had his number or anything, but that wasn’t much of an excuse. You knew practically every god and goddess at those parties so it wouldn’t have been difficult to pass a message along to him.

You unlocked your phone, typing out some half-truth to your friend.

**Y/N: I’m swamped, didn’t think it was a good idea**

**Natasha: So the better one was to ignore him? He’s been looking for you all night. Clearly he wanted you here.**

“Oh gods,” you said muffled into your hand. “I’m the worst.”

**Y/N: It’s a party, I’m sure he’ll find another friend. He knows Steve and a few others, he’ll still have a good time.**

Yet again, those deep blue eyes appeared in your mind as he asked you to come meet him next time.

**Natasha: Not quite.**

**Y/N: What happened?**

Seconds ticked by with no response.

**Y/N: Nat, what happened?**

It was another minute of your heart and mind racing as you wondered what the hell she could mean. Finally after what felt like a grueling hour, she texted back.

**Natasha: Don’t know the details but while he was asking around after you something went down. Apparently someone confronted him on his past and things got heated. He did not look all too good after that, that I can say.**

**Y/N: Who.**

No answer.

**Y/N: Who fought with him.**

**Y/N: Give me a name Natasha.**

**Y/N: Natasha, tell me damn it.**

**Y/N: Is he alright?**

**Y/N: Natasha, what’s happening?**

“Screw this,” you muttered to yourself, storming out of your office and towards the garage.

From your expansive and isolated compound you still had a view of the city far off in the distance. You could be at the Tower fairly soon and that’s exactly where you were headed.

**Y/N: I’m coming. At least text me his number.**

You rolled your eyes as Nat immediately sent you his cell number, now onto your friend’s game. But that didn’t stop you, pulling on shoes, bypassing the various vehicles you had and sliding into a sleek jet black sports car. You tore out of the garage and down your lane, passing the tall black metal gates and out into the night.

By the time you got out of the country and into the city, you had somewhat of a plan. Not that you had too much of a choice; you were still wearing your pyjamas and crashing a black-tie event. It left your hands a bit tied.

You went passed the usual stop at the front of the building where the valets were there waiting for any late arrivals or early departures, and drove around to the back of the building. As you stopped at the security barricade, you rolled down your window and flashed a smile to the man at his post. The grin was definitely too large and probably verging on creepy, but what was the security guard supposed to do? You were the Goddess of the Underworld and you were technically on the guest list, even if that didn’t exactly include a trip to the loading docks. He couldn’t reasonably deny you entrance, the knowledge of you and the fear because of it enough of a motivator.

So he took a second but did eventually nod, raising up the gate and letting you through to the dark and deserted back alley.

You parked and stepped out, feeling a bit of a chill seeping into your rather thin pajamas. You bit your tongue from scolding yourself as you tried the broad steel doors, trying not to admit you could have taken a minute to put on _real_ clothes and not run out of the house like a madwoman in your underalls.

Eventually one silver door opened, ready in case of an emergency delivery of caviar of all things at Tony’s request. You only knew because you were there that one time it ran out, and he insisted that from there on he would make sure they could get some at all hours.

You searched down the greyed and darkened hall until you found the service elevator, pulling out your phone as you waited for the doors to open. You texted one word to Bucky, not even mentioning who it was from.

**Y/N: Balcony.**

All too soon and too slowly you reached the top floor, exiting the elevator close to one of the many kitchens that serviced a party like this one. You felt too stressed to acknowledge or try and play off your strange appearance to any of the staff there, bustling to fill trays of brightly coloured treats and towering displays, choosing instead to speed passed them all.

The balcony had a staff entrance to it, tucked away on the side for the warm summer evenings when the party spilled out into the open air. You used it to your advantage, rushing through it and back into the night chill again.

He was the only one there, hunched over the railing a little, his back to you. Just from his posture he looked maybe dejected, maybe hurt, or maybe both.

Your heart lurched but you didn’t have time to dwell on that. Running forward you moved as lightly as you could, sticking as much to the outer edge to keep the glow of the party lights from inside off of you. The celebration inside was as it always was: bright glow, bubbling laughter, and people filling the room to the brim.

Bucky felt your presence before you got to him, turning just as you reached to grab his metal hand.

“Y/N,” he exclaimed, speaking at a rather normal volume to be honest, but your free hand quickly closed around his mouth. You weren’t sure if he was more shocked by your appearance, or your sudden presence, or your actions with your palm pressed against his lips and body an inch away from him.

His eyes scanned you up and down before locking onto yours. He didn’t have the chance or ability yet to question what you were doing before you spoke.

“Do you want to leave?” you asked quickly, quietly, and without any pleasantries, unable to look away from him. All you knew was he had been upset and you needed to do something about it. You were decisive in a hard situation or crisis to say the least, but never had you felt as intense a burning of emotions during one. “I heard something happened with another god here, that maybe you got hurt. Bucky, did you want to go home?”

Your hand fell away but you didn’t move away, searching for an answer. He opened his mouth to speak but sighed instead, body slouching a little as he pulled a hand through his hair.

“I actually live here at the Tower with some of the other, so I kind of don’t have a choice,” His voice was deep and felt like rediscovering a favourite song forgotten long ago. But it was rueful and sad and immediately pulled at your heartstrings. He didn’t want to be here. You heard it in his voice, saw it in his face, felt it in your heart.

You didn’t hesitate and repeated your question, asking slightly more softly this time, eyes still searching his. “Do you want to leave?”

He took a moment before he answered. You held your breath as you waited, thinking this mad dash and stupid plan was going to be for nothing but rejection. But he leaned in, head tilted down to you so close to you smell the jasmine, raindrops, and cedar on him.

“Yes,” he said, hushed. “Take me with you.”

You raised yourself up on your tiptoes briefly in unspoken delight, a small smile on your lips as you nodded once to him. You hand clasped his tighter and in a second you were off hand-in-hand. You pulled him through the staff entrance and began the retreat back the way you came.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, smiling tightly to the kitchen staff watching as you raced through in a hurry. “Where are we going?”

“I’m stealing you away,” you whispered back over your shoulder. “And you’re staying with me, at my house.”

You stopped in front of the elevator, clicking the button and turning back to him.

“Are you… well, are okay with that?” you asked, internally bracing yourself for a “no”.

That would be more than fair. Probably advisable. You could count the people on one hand who were able to set foot on your property. It was dangerous to those not welcome or invited. _You_ were dangerous to anyone not welcome or invited.

You couldn’t let just anyone come in, interfere or sabotage your work and risk upsetting the balance you worked tirelessly to build.

You should have seen fear in him. Felt him pull away and make up some excuse to turn back. It would probably break your heart on the spot, but you would understand.

But Bucky didn’t. He stepped up to you again, the spice and floral and spring smell of him entering your lungs and your memory forever. Again, with one soft look your heart both melted and lept in your chest.

“Yeah,” he said, that same look in those blue eyes that he had when you last parted. That look that had been popping up in your mind since. “Yeah, let’s go.”

 


	4. Welcome to the Underworld

The city was long since in your rearview mirror with the dark green forest a wall on either side of you as you sped through.

He had been a little tense, arms and legs held together unmoving and stiff when the two of you had slid into the black car. Now, the further you had gotten towards your house, the more relaxed he had become and the more tightly wound _you_ had become.

 _This is insane!,_ you thought to yourself, repeating it for the hundredth time and gripping the steering wheel all the harder. Never have you analyzed anything _less_ in your entire existence or chosen to disrupt the balance of things in such a way.

What were you supposed to say when he asked why you weren’t there tonight? What were you doing here now? Why had you insisted on doing this?

You couldn’t just _steal_ a god and take him back to your house. There were rules. There were reasons why this wasn’t done.

You glanced to him, eyes shooting over to the passenger side and held him in your gaze for a moment.

He was sitting here, hands folded easily in his lap now, a vision in the dark shadows of the night that veiled you both. But while you sunk into the shadows easily, he was somehow still full of colour and that glow of calm energy, deep jewel tones breaking through the darkness.

His eyes, watching out the window at the greenery speeding by, were a deep alexandrite blue with little flecks of icy beryl set into them. His hair in the darkness looked like onyx with flashes of chestnut and amber and carnelian. As always he had that almost invisible aura of glowing new life, pale and beautiful.

You saw another colour too, something light in shade below his eye, forming just under his skin. It was a tint darker than his lips, though you doubted it would stay so light for long.

“Nat told me a little about what happened tonight,” you said quietly, eyes back on the road and mouth as dry as you could ever remember it being. Gods, you could use a bottle or two of champagne right now. “Who did you get in a fight with?”

He pulled a bit of a face, shrugging as he looked down to his hands.

“T’Challa,” he started, stumbling through words laced with sadness, confusion, and embarrassment. “I guess I… well, he said I did somethings. Awful things. But I swear, I didn’t. At least, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I can’t exactly remember.”

“Hmm,” you mumbled through your teeth, trying to quell the cold fury inside you. _That_ was a side you couldn’t let Bucky see yet. “He’s determined guy, I’m surprised you didn’t lose an eye.”

“Steve got him off me,” Bucky admitted. “But I don’t think he was quite done yet. Managed to break away to the balcony.”

“All the better reason to get you out of there,” you said more to yourself, grasping at any straw you could to justify you stealing a god away from his home. And not even one of your own gods working under you.

“Well, I’ve never been to the Underworld before, or your realm at all I guess,” he said, eyes looking somehow brighter. It was almost like he was looking forward to this?

A crooked grin cracked through on your face, a mixture of validation and amusement sprouting in you. You were happy from the distraction from your anger and self-doubt anyways.

“Well, you won’t be able to say that much longer…”

You faded out, the massive black gates and concrete fence looming just ahead. You nodded out the windshield to the structure that was stories high, dark, and intimidating. There was a veil or mist, slightly murky and shimmering just before the gates. You drove through without interruption, passing through the wobbly mist to the clarity of the other side, and officially into your realm.

“We’re now officially within the Underworld now. So welcome to my home, I guess,” you added, frown following. Gods, you desperately needed to brush up on your small talk and social interactions. You’d be cringing over that one later.

You curved around with the circular driveway, a black marble and gold detailed fountain in the middle of it, parking in front of steps up to the impressive front doors. Nothing about your home was ordinary, to be sure.

“It doesn’t have the height or grandeur of the Tower,” you said, feet crunching the gravel underfoot as you walked around to him. “Or as much plant-life as you would probably prefer, but it’s home.”

“I thought it…” he started before turning and walking in step with you up to the doors. “I thought it would be… I guess _different_.”

You weren’t exactly shocked at that reaction, giving him a smile as you opened the door, pushing it in to reveal the sprawling space inside.

“We’re in my realm, sure,” you said, throwing your keys into a gold bowl on a low white table. “But that back there was the South Gate. The Underworld you’re thinking of is just west of here, at the aptly described West Gate. Here it’s less dead souls and mist covered wastelands, and more minimalism with a cool colour pallet.”

You walked just a couple steps ahead of him, floor to ceiling of windows on your left and modern art decorating the grey concrete walls to your right. Bucky wandered behind you, taking it all in.

“I won’t go over a full geography lesson here,” you said. “But it’s important that you stay on these grounds, within this building. I won’t get into what lurks beyond them, but in here you’ll be just fine.”

You looked back hesitantly, wondering at what point he’d snap-to and demand to be returned. But he quickly nodded in understanding, eyes going back to peek into large rooms as he walked by of what were mostly art collections, sculptures, and rare jewels on display.

You ended up in your living room, with low and long leather couches, a lengthy fireplace set into the wall, and a stocked bar to one side.

“Kitchen is through there, and I’ll set you up in one of the spare rooms,” You couldn’t remember the last time anyone had stayed in one actually. “If you need anything, I’m here. And Veronica, the A.I., of course.”

You briefly debated going through a tour of all the rooms; anything to keep from having an awkward conversation of questions from him you couldn’t answer yourself.

It was only you and him here though. It wasn’t like you could put off talking to him forever.

He was silent as you turned to him, fiddling with your hands under the silence that was fast turning tense, at least to you.

He only watched you softly though. Was he waiting for you explain why you had broken your promise to him? Why you had abandoned him to a party only to be attacked when he was looking for you?

In the mere minutes from when you first noticed, that mark under his eye had gotten darker. Oh gods, you had done that to him. You might as well have anyway. He wouldn’t have gotten into with another god if you had kept your promise.

He trusted you, believed you when you said you would be there. He had made himself vulnerable and you felt that in turn now.

Your face scrunched a little, sympathy pain stabbing in your soul. Reflexively your hand went up to touch the bruise just under his eyes, the colour already a plum-like purple now. Your fingertips didn’t touch him, hovering just over the spot.

“I’m so sorry,” you said morosely, your eyes glued to the injury but his locked to yours. “I feel responsible for this, I should have been there. I don’t really have a reason I can give. Nothing good enough to justify this anyways.”

You were snapped out of your misery by his hand taking your wrist. His skin was so warm compared to yours, the heat of spreading through you in a moment. Only then did you catch that look in his eyes, soft and intent at the same time. He moved your hand to rest on his face just like you had wanted too, the connection another jolt of heat through your body.

“You still came,” he said, voice low and quiet. “There’s nothing to forgive, Y/N.”

You held your breath as your fingertips moved gently and slowly on his cheek. Bucky did the opposite, not holding his but instead inhaling a deep contented breath, moving in closer and placing his forehead to yours. If his eyes were open he would have seen a kind of thrilled panic in your eyes.

How had you, the relatively brazen one, and the shifting man you met on the balcony switched places? Now you were the unsure one, breath rapid and mind racing, too afraid to move and break the delicate equilibrium of this moment.

How was he this comfortable with you? Why had he wanted you to touch him?

...But did it matter? At least in this moment you couldn’t believe it did, a haziness falling over your brain as that magnetism he exuded overwhelmed you. Combined with that floral, spring rain scent of his you were done for.

You had no choice under that sway but for your muscles to relax into him, his hands coming to your waist to steady you.

“I think…” he whispered, a gentle night breeze on your skin. “I think I missed you.”

You swallowed, another wave of dizzy hitting you. What was he saying?

“You don’t know me, Bucky,” you said, that heady floral smell filling every pocket of your lungs. It was as though you had been transported into a field thick with wildflowers and sun and rain. You could smell the beautiful florals, feel the heat of the sun, taste the mist of rain on your tongue.

“I know,” he agreed, swallowing. “But I still did.”

This was insane and you knew it, but you didn’t care. You had thought about him since you met him. You were losing sleep over him. Torturing yourself over trying not to think about him. Your heart broke when you refused to see him out of your own spiraling doubt. You snapped when you heard he was hurt. You stole him away in the middle of the night. You had him in your arms now and decidedly didn’t want to let go.

“If it helps,” you spoke, barely audible in the little space between you. “I think I did too.”

His reply was unspoken, just the feeling of his arms wrapping and tightening around you.

Yes it was insane, but it was true and in this moment it felt real.

“I think I-” you said, pulling away slightly and stopping short as you saw what was around you.

Mouth ajar you looked around, taking in the scene of your once clean-cut minimalistic living space.

The blue and grey space was filled to the brim now, transforming from a space you knew well into a full-blown greenhouse of sorts. Vines had climbed up the walls, covering them in a thick leafy tangle. Green sprouted under foot, thick and lush grass and leaves covering the sealed concrete.

The most stunning were the flowers though. It practically stole your breath away. There were more varieties than you knew, blooming and growing everywhere. Blue and violet Floss Flowers, light peach Peruvian Lilies, white and butter yellow Windflowers, ruby red Persian Buttercups, bright turquoise Blue Himalayan Poppies, and so many more. They filled the once dark room with blooming, beautiful life.

“What is it?” Bucky asked. You looked back to him with a disbelieving scoff before realizing his eyes hadn’t left you.

“Your handiwork certainly brightens up the place,” you said with a grin, gesturing around you.

His eyes glanced to the side for a second before back to you. It took a moment, but his face pulled into one of confusion. Slowly this time he looked around the room and actually saw it now, eyebrows shooting up and eyes wide at the display all around him.

“Oh gods,” he said, instantly fighting within himself to either laugh at this or be embarrassed by it. To your delight he ended up smiling, a moonbeam bright look that made your soul hum in a contented way you swore you had never heard before. “I swear I didn’t mean too. I’ll fix it, I’m so sorry.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle, a warm smile on your lips. You put your hands back to cup his face, leaning him back down to you, as you had just been.

“Please don’t,” you said, quietly. “Not yet.”

The warmth in you smile matched his, growing as fast as the flowers had.

“Okay Y/N,” he hummed, settling easily into holding you again. Whatever hum your soul had made sounded exactly like the one he did just there.

You thought there maybe should be some awkwardness or shame or something nagging you. But there just wasn’t. Only the smell of spring and his warm arms around you. There wasn’t room for much else.

Your attention was pulled just to the side of the pair of you, wrapped up together. You thought the movement would be more stunning flowers growing, but you found quickly you were quite wrong.

You didn’t blink and didn’t move, just spoke to Bucky with a clear and steady voice

“Bucky,” you started, voice a warning. “Don’t. Move.”

You felt him stiffen under you just as a distinct vibrating growl filled the room. The aggression in the sound was palpable, and you felt his hold on you tighten, pulling you deeper into him. Slowly he tried to turn his body and block you from whatever was making the noise

“Bucky, don’t,” you whispered, eyes moving to lock onto the large black figure just in the shadows.

“What is it?” he whispered, lips brushing your ear. But at the sound of his voice the snarl grew louder and angrier, conjuring up visions of nightmares.

You lifted your hands off of his shoulder, raising them up slowly. Carefully and with deliberate movements, you reached down to Bucky’s hands at your sides and removed them. You held on to one wrist, moving so that at no point were you completely detached from him, but shifting your body so you were in front of him, facing the creature making the noise.

You felt more than a little resistance from Bucky, who was not all too pleased to be behind you, despite being unaware of the danger he was in.

“Bucky… this is Cerberus,” you said, calm and steady. The commanding tone was neutral and controlled, but the threat clearly wasn’t over yet. “Cerberus, this is Bucky, God of Spring. He’s welcome here, and you’ll treat him as such.”

At that there were three distinct clashes of teeth flashing the shadows, snarls and bellows ringing out like thunder. The fury behind them was not thinly veiled at all, murder and blood in every snap and rumble.

This time when you spoke your voice was lowered, sounding cold and deadly and spreading a chill through the room with a single word.

“ _Enough_.”

Bucky couldn’t see it but your eyes were taken over by a glacial blue colour, clouding your irises, pupils, and whites of your eyes completely. It was death and ice and lightning held in your eyes, displaying pure power and directed solely at Cerberus before you.

In the darkness you saw three sets of purple eyes flash with that same icy look. After a moment the growling stopped, and the three set of eyes faded into one pair, melting back into their violet glow.

After that Cerberus stepped forward, looking rather displeased but not murderous at any rate, so that was a start.

You relaxed immediately, moving out from in front of Bucky, who was looking wide-eyed at the creature as Cerberus stepped into the dim light and jungle of a living room.

He was built like a wolf, long black hair and tail shining in the moonlight coming through the gaps in the vine-covered windows. You walked up to him easily, patting his glossy side. Your head was about at his shoulder, with his sharp teeth and predator eyes looming just above you protectively.

“I know he’s a little dangerous looking, but if you give him space there’s no need t-”

When you turned to look at Bucky you didn’t find him across the room, but right up to Cerberus, both hands scratching the dog's chest and craning his neck up to look fondly at the black beast.

You swore both you and Cerberus had the same stunned and surprised expression on your faces watching Bucky, who had a rather goofy expression on his face.

“Who’s such a good protector, huh?” Bucky said, voice low and like he was talking to an infant. “Who’s a good protector?”

You watched as slowly Cerberus sat back on his hind legs, wary eyes on Bucky before stretching his neck up for Bucky to scratch more.

“Oh please,” you muttered to yourself, leaning against the dog's fluffy side.

“Who’s such a good boy?” Bucky asked, and you felt a breeze on your legs. Looking back you saw a bit of a wag from your so-called murderous beast.

“Alright, I think it’s time you got back to work,” you said to Cerberus before speaking to Bucky. “And you got some rest.”

Bucky parted with the beast with a last scratch before you two began walking down to the hall to the bedrooms. You casted a glance back to Cerberus, who was _hopefully_ off on his nightly patrol, slinking back silently into the shadows.

“I think he likes you,” you said, a little floored. Besides Cerberus loving you, you didn’t think that was possible.

“That’s great, I-”

“No, that’s definitively _not_ great!” you said, laughing incredulously at the turn of events. “He’s supposed to _protect_ this place, I can’t have him rolling over for complete strangers!”

“What about gods who are not so much strangers?” he asked, the smallest hint of mischief in his eyes.

“I mean I’m happy he didn’t tear you to shreds, Bucky,” you said. You slowed down and stopped in front of a bedroom door, Bucky following your lead and doing the same.  “But I think I better have a talk with Cerberus in the morning all the same.”

“So he protects this place?” he said, conversationally with that look still in his eyes. You wondered if he was purposely lingering. If so, you didn’t really mind that at all. You weren’t sure you wanted to say goodnight just yet. “And you while in it, I assume?”

“Yeah,” you said. “He’s usually pretty good at both. The best, actually.”

“So,” Bucky started, taking a step closer to you. “If I were to hold you again, would he show up looking to kill me again?”

“I uh, I don’t know actually,” you said, a heat flushing your face. You didn’t get too many visitors keen on wanting to hold you, the Goddess of the Underworld, afterall.

“Okay,” Bucky said, taking another step closer, the length of his body practically pressed to yours now. If you didn’t know his any better his height and frame would seem intimidating, but your fluttering heart was not out of fear. “Can I try it, just to see?”

“If he does shred you before you can soften him up, you’ve been warned,” you said, trying to hide in sarcasm.

It wasn't exactly a "no" though and Bucky picked up on that with a grin.

Your fluttering heart felt as though it bloomed in your chest the moment his arms wrapped around your waist, pushing the pair of your closer together. Close enough to breathe him in, feel his heat, hear his heartbeat.

That haze of intoxication filled you again, the connection in you so strong to be near. Now that you had him so close it overwhelmed you, thawing you out and filling you with a bubbly firey warmth. It was like he was turning your cold, wintered soul into spring again.

It could have been minutes or days he held you and you held him, but at some point Bucky brought you gently back to reality.

His lips found their way to your ear, gently brushing your skin as he spoke. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

You stepped back rather quickly, breath rapid in your lungs and that warm haze covering you. Again you saw Bucky, now with that same delicate white flower crown wrapped loosely around his head. Again it had bloomed in a quiet moment between you, a beautiful fragile thing, sitting gracefully on his brow.

“‘Night, Bucky.”

You didn’t know how you walked back to your room, or why you change out of your pajamas just to get into fresh ones. This night was not the one you expected to have in the least, your mind fuddled and heart thumping loudly.

When you entered your ensuite, running the tap and heating up the room with steam, you looked up and saw yourself in the mirror. Somehow, wrapped around your head in a small circle was a wreath of dark green stems with pale blue blooms. Unmoving in front of the mirror, you took in that wreath and it's ethereal glow, seeing those same small white flowers accompanying those little blue blossoms, matching the flowers Bucky had on his.

You still didn’t know what you were doing, but whatever it was you liked it.


	5. In the Garden

A haze of sleep clung to you as the morning broke, dreamy and slow. You could never stand the bright and intrusive morning sun of Thor’s realm. Too bright, too much, too fast.

With eyes closed, you shimmied down in a cushy bed and puffy duvet, your head smushed into the cloud of pillows. You might start your days early, but that didn’t mean you didn’t enjoy lingering in bed for a time.

You took a deep breath as you yawned, catching a note of something in the air. Your brows pulled together just slightly as one eye cracked open to inspect whatever that unfamiliar nagging was.

When you saw it, the events of last night came flooding back in a snap.

Placed carefully on the pillow beside you was one flower crown, withered and brittle. The beautiful little thing was long past dead now but the sweetness it carried lasted long beyond its life, hovering in the air around you. At seeing the flower crown you remember the personification of that sweet and soft ideation had stayed the night.

That thought was enough to spur your movements into high gear, throwing back the covers and running barefoot to your closet.

_Did he sleep well? Did he regret coming here? Maybe he called someone to get him in the night? No, you would have been notified by Veronica of that. Or what Cerberus changed his mind about the newcomer? What if–_

As fast as your mind rushed through a thousand questions, you brushed out your bedhead and searched through your closet for something to wear. The contents of your closet were high-end and generally understated. It was a sea of rich, luxurious fabrics in deep colours for all occasions, from the most exclusive black tie affairs to padding around your home with a pint of ice cream.

Though your day-to-day fair was perhaps not as over the top as some of the other goddesses, you didn’t need them to be. The others dressed in flashy, overdone outfits in order to pretend to look better and therefore _be_ better than everyone else.

You were the Goddess of the Underworld and Riches. What did you care what lesser gods thought?

… Though, there was one in your home at that very minute whose opinion you rather cared about.

Immediately your mind launched into another wave of questions, half concerned and half with a fringe of almost giddiness. For so long before last night you had wanted to see him, to have him close and all to yourself. Now he was really _here_ , and you couldn’t help but feel a thread of excitement at that, even if it was paired with that apprehensive foreboding too.

The calm interior of your home rather did not match your subtly nervous energy as you ventured out of your room to find Bucky. It was quiet and still and just as it should be. No signs of a guest or sound echoing down the halls at all.

You walked to his room first, knocking on the door and waiting for a reply. None came. Even after slowly peeking in, you saw nothing but a dim emptiness inside.

Room by room you wandered into, expecting to turn a corner and see the god, warm smile caught on his lip and that enraptured look in his blue eyes.

A moment in the hallway gave you pause, having you teetering on the edge of asking Veronica where he was.

… But what if he _had_ actually left?

Your heart skipped a beat, not wanting confirmation of that.

But a thought struck you as you considered where he would want to go first. The place a God of Spring would be drawn to if he found himself here in the Underworld. There wasn’t really a lot of options, so you let your feet carry you to the spot you should have gone to in the first place.

It was a garden, enclosed in the walls of the house with dark green and manicured vegetation, some sprouting jeweled-coloured flowers of navy and deep violet. Others were a ghostly blue or soft grey. It was set surrounding a dark pool with grey-flecked granite surrounding the deep water.

Leave it to a God of Spring to find the only garden here, a large open space filled with nature and growth calling him.

And leave it to _Cerberus_ to abandon his post to find Bucky.

The pair were on the ground on a pile of leaf-looking things, Bucky leaning against Cerberus’s side, absently scratching and talking to the beast, though you couldn’t catch the words just yet as you approached through one of the several archways. You couldn’t help but pause, leaning a hip against a column and watching the scene in front of you, not sure whether you should laugh or roll your eyes.

The teal looking leaves they sat on looked like delicate little pillows, growing in huge patches under one rather impressively goofy looking Cerberus. He was laying on his side, mouth open in what could only be described as a smile, tongue hanging out in that silly looking way dogs do.

Well, what you once thought most dogs did _except_ your Cerberus.

“What is this? Canine catnip?” you called out, making your presence known and stepping onto the lush grass underfoot.

“Lamb’s Ear,” he said easily. His smile had been a content one there alone with Cerberus, but when he caught sight of you the warmth in it grew tenfold. You didn’t know how, but it lit him up with that glow of his, a moonbeam shine in the pale morning. “They’re basically furry leaves and not a bad bed in a situation.”

“Sleeping on a bed of Lamb’s Ears,” you mumbled, hand on your hip as you watched the pair fondly. “Gods, ‘Berus must be in heaven.”

Bucky stood, brushing himself off and was not shy in stepping right up to you. He was a picture of ease, with his blue eyes like soft rippling pools and a crooked grin looking pleased in the white-grey morning light.

”Good morning, by the way,” he said quietly when he reached you.

“Good morning yourself,” you replied, having a hard time not replying to his smile with your own, despite your best efforts. “I see you found the garden here alright?”

You began walking down the small black granite path, Bucky stepping in pace with your meandering stroll. You tried our best not to purposely brush your knuckles against his as you walked together too much. The fact was you had wanted to hold him in your bed last night, so you could hardly berate yourself for this mere touch this morning. Either way, you could feel the now becoming familiar heat he drove in you stirring up again. And the more it happened, the more you enjoyed it.

“It’s impressive, I haven’t seen any of these before,” He walked up to vine wrapping itself around a large pine, whose lowest branches grew far above your heads. A small plum colored bloom grew in its shade and gingerly he touched the petals, his fingers not so much as bruising a single one.

“Not too many have,” you said with a shrug, pulling off a nearby leaf and twirling it absently in your fingers. “We don’t get a lot of visitors here.”

“Why not? It’s a little grey out but nothing _spooky_ like some gods make it out to be,” He moved out from under the pine and back beside you, looking skyward.

“I think it’s a combination of things,” you said, trying not to chuckle at the naivete of the god. “The atmosphere, myself, and the rules generally forbidding so kinda don’t work in the favour of tourists looking for a good time.”

“Why the rules?” he asked.

You tucked your hair behind your ear, taking a breath and answering lightly but seriously.

“To prevent interference,” you said. “I mean if I have to boil it down to the bare minimum I suppose. There are a lot of people here we can’t risk getting out. It isn’t safe for living beings here anyways and we don’t want them caught up in this. This realm isn’t conducive to life. That’s kinda in the description.”

“I’ve been caught up in this and I’ve been doing just fine,” he said leaning into you with a smile as you both walked on, flowers and vines silently growing in the wake of your footsteps.

You couldn’t tell if he was being cheeky or smug. Whatever it was fanned that flame which burned in your chest and down to your soul. You couldn’t place why you loved him being so free and comfortable, both here and with you. Or maybe you could, you just didn’t want to admit it to yourself. Not if it meant confronting why you _shouldn’t_ love it.

“Yeah, well, chalk that up to the grace of the one _ruling_ this realm,” you said, poking him in the shoulder, matching his smugness.

He laughed a breathy kind of chuckle, the good-natured kind. Pure and heartwarming. The desire to reach out and touch him, to connect with him again like you did last night just about overwhelmed you. Your dwindling self-control only _just_ won out.

You didn’t lose. Not wars, not arguments, not over protecting a careful balance of this realm.

But gods, you could feel yourself _fast_ losing the battle against the feelings that Bucky brought up in you. It was the feeling of fall with no way to catch yourself or slow down. It was exhilarating and terrifying and completely new. Again, you shouldn’t love it, but you found more and more you did.

“And just as I’m not exactly at my peak outside the Underworld, so the other gods not bound here aren’t as powerful,” you pointed out. “I’m sure you’ve noticed you aren’t exactly the all-powerful Mr. Spring when you’re here.”

“Y/N” he said, stopping and putting hands on his hips. “I’m the God of Spring; there’s going to be spring if I say so. That’s kind of the gig.”

You smiled, narrowing your eyes and stepping closer, closing the distance and tilting your chin up to him. You poked him in the chest, under the watchful gaze of those bright eyes of his.

“I don’t think so, Bucko,” you said, that self-assured smugness making another appearance. “Not in my realm. That’s kind of _my_ gig. My realm, my rules.”

While you spoke neither of you realized what was happening underfoot, that the vines and flowers trailing and blooming behind you overtook you both. So in your retreat, you hadn’t noticed them growing and twisting, wrapping around your shoes and tripping you as you stepped back.

You jerked in surprise, Bucky catching you immediately as you stumbled back, a firm metal arm around your waist and warm hand grabbing yours.

“Are you trying to kill me in my own garden?” you said with a shaky breath. “I can guarantee you that’s not going to work out for you Bucky, all things considered.”

Your chest knocked into his as fast breathing filled your lungs, more than a bit surprised at the shock and flustered by his quick closeness. And he wasn’t letting go, bringing your hand to rest just over his heart. Maybe it was just in your head, but you could have sworn you felt his heart beat as fast as yours was.

“No, I swear! I’m sorry,” But holding you he didn’t look all too sorry, gaze intent and grip firm around you. “I’m still not in control of it yet. But I’d _never_ hurt you, I swear.”

“Oh really? So if we were to kiss I wouldn’t be impaled by a petunia?” you said sarcastically, face flushed with heat the second the words were out of your mouth.

Instantly you tried to lean back, eyes looking anywhere but him and trying to gulp down the rock suddenly somehow lodged in your throat.

Oh gods, why had you even gone _there_ of all place?!

Had he even thought of kissing you? Would he want to? Or maybe he was afraid of getting the life sucked out of him. Gods, how many times had you heard _that_ joke before, whispered between nymphs and the like.

“Wait, what?” he asked taken off guard just as much as you were by your own question. He leaned forward in response to you leaning away, his eyes on your lips and distinct flush spreading on his face, probably matching your own. “No… no, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well,” you said taking in a gulp of air and trying to straighten up, a cue for Bucky to let go. He didn’t though, holding you fast. “Better not risk it.”

“Well, I think we better,” he said emphatically, pulling you in. You had no choice now but to look straight into his eyes, so close to you could see every one of the million shades of blue in his eyes. It was a galaxy of sapphires and cobalts and ceruleans, endless and divine.

“Why’s that?” you asked, lips almost touching his. The question came out guarded and quiet, thinly veiling your curiosity at his reply, momentarily overriding your embarrassment.

He looked off to the distance a moment, struggling for the words. Eventually, he settled to look back at your lips.

“Because I want too,” he said after a moment, shoulders relaxing as though a burden had been lifted. “I really, really do.”

You tried to move your hand out from his, if only half-heartedly. Gods, you wanted this- wanted him- more than you wanted anything, but that just didn’t change reality. And pragmatic as always you couldn’t just ignore that.

“Listen,” you started, for reasons you could only barely grasp onto in the moment. “We just… We can’t. We shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. You shouldn’t even _be_ here. People will talk and it’s just… stuff like this just isn’t done.”

When he did release you, taking a step back and giving you space, you almost cringed at the lost connection and warmth. It was like a bone snapped somewhere in your soul, broken and intangible and hurting. You couldn’t pinpoint the pain, as in a flash it seemed to be everywhere.

You inhaled slowly, pushing down the pain and settling back into the suddenly apparent emptiness you must usually feel but hadn’t been aware of until this moment.

“Why would you care what people say?” Bucky asked in a challenge. It wasn’t angry or upset but held back, guarded and curious.

“You’re the God of Spring, Bucky,” you said obviously, as though you hadn’t said that what felt like a hundred times before. “I don’t think I need to point out that you’re not from this realm and I’m the ruler of it.”

“So what?” he said, leaning back with his arms crossed.

“So, we’re not…” You gestured between the pair of you, searching for the words. “Compatible, I guess. How could we be?”

Bucky laughed. Actually _laughed_. You stepped back at that, confusion spreading through you. What about any of this was _funny_ to him?

“You’re not looking at this right, Y/N,” he said after settling down, his tone kind but still challenging.

“Please, all I do is analyze and look at things objectively,” you said rolling your eyes. You had the case files of countless souls and the balance of the entirety of this realm to prove it. “I _am_ right in this, even if you don’t want to hear it or decide to laugh it off.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re skilled when it comes to the dead,” he said, hands back on his hips. “Not yourself or me. Not _us_.”

…There was an “us”? That fact that him saying that little word filled your heart internally while outwardly you were somewhat trying to end this was a telltale sign you probably weren’t cut out to be the one calling it quits.

You wanted a legitimate reason not to stop this. Something that would make sense of everything leading up to the moment since you first saw Bucky across the crowd and standing alone. Some clarifying reason to be drawn to him and want him, one that would outweigh the warning bells sounding because of how many rules you were breaking here.

Bucky wandered back under one of the large dark green pines, leaning leisurely back against the massive trunk, crossing his ankles and his arms. He stared pointedly at you, not yet ready to back down here.

“What is spring? To you. Describe it to me.”

You tried not to sigh, crossing your own arms and answering his question, which you figured would solve absolutely nothing.

“It’s new life,” you started. “It’s delicate flowers and gentle rains and growth and life and softness. It, in all respects, is the _opposite_ of what I rule, what I do, who I’m charged with.”

You saw a hint of a smile on him before he spoke.

“You know, you’re wrong about that.”

“Oh,” you sighed, getting exasperated with not just getting to the point here. “Do tell, God of All Knowledge.”

He smiled broader, the cheeky bugger.

“Spring isn’t gentleness, Y/N. Not wholly anyways,” he said with a shrug. “It’s being beaten down by cold and winter and starting again. It’s renewal. And that means challenging frost and the death it brings with it. It’s balancing that fight, between gentle growth and harshness. It’s fighting the harsh with equal and greater measure, to bring about what needs to be done. To help bring balance to the seasons, to nature.”

That silenced you, jaw held shut as your mind began to turn.

“You really think we’re so incompatible?” he asked, standing straight and walking closer towards you. “That I’m so different from you underneath it all?”

He paused just in front of you with those kind eyes and voice and soul. Gods, you could feel yourself losing this battle.

“You really think,” he said quietly. Gently, with the same light touch his used to caress the petals of the flowers here in the garden, he brushed your hair behind your ears. A flower bloomed there, placed behind your ear too. “That I don’t understand you and the supposed bad things you think come with you? That I don’t get harshness and balance and enduring the hard things that just won’t stay down? I do Y/N. I get it. All of it. Maybe in a different way, but you have to realize we’re not really so dissimilar here.”

His fingers trailed down along your jaw, feather-light like the softest drops of rain.

“I’m sure you think I’ll just wither away,” he continued, a small almost melancholy smile on his lips. “But you have to know that’s not true. I’m not that fragile, and you’re not that cruel.”

You could feel the ghost of his hand, hovering just above your waist. It would be so easy to lean into him. So easy to say the yes you wanted too. So easy to drop your role and responsibility to the wayside for one single moment.

Because you could see what he did. That draw, that magnetism you felt wasn’t so unfounded, wasn’t so wildly baseless. And in that moment, it was enough.

You hesitated, taking a long pause after his words just to breathe for a minute. But when you looked up to him, you had made your decision. Wordlessly you took that final step to close the distance between you, gently taking his hand in yours and holding it above your beating heart.

You saw the lines of his face melt from held concern to serene realization as you tilted your head up just so, waiting for him to meet his lips to yours.

And when he leaned down and kissed you, his lips pressing against yours in the gentlest way, time stopped.

It started off hesitant but wanting, growing into a thrilled need, as though the euphoria of your kiss would be taken away at any moment. He needed and succeeded to draw out every exquisite moment he could, just as blissfully desperate to take in as much of you as he was able. And you did the same, responding in kind and giving in to that feeling you had wanted to every moment you had spent with and apart from him.

It was the first sip of pure water after a lifetime in the desert. It was as warm as the sun heating you down to the most distant reaches of your soul. It sent chills down your spine deeper than any cold or ice could ever touch you. It was as soul shaking as thunder and as tranquil as the fragrance of lavender. His fingers on your skin were lighter than flower petals themselves, and his kiss grew deeper than any root.

You held him, hands caught in his hair as his were caught in yours, bodies tangling and melding together as vines and flowers wrapped around the both of you, binding you together in cascades of bright blooms, doomed to die long before this kiss was over.


	6. That Heat

You remembered yesterday morning and the morning before that one. You remembered the ones last week, and last month, and last year. You remembered all the way back to ages past because they were all the same, with waking up slow in grey mornings, mostly alone and with work on your mind.

But this morning had been different. It started with a warmth, not from the pillowy duvet, but from a place inside you. A neglected piece of your soul awoken like the spring after winter. The stale tomb of a place called “love” inside you had its door thrown wide open, the air of change stirring you and heat from another soul burning up the bitterness that once filled it. That heat spread up through your soul and into your body, bringing with it a song of joy and a smile on your lips.

You knew what it was, that incandescence. It was because you were in love. You had been since the moment you saw him, but you knew it and let yourself feel it now. It changed everything and nothing, and you could hardly remember waking up to feel this alive or happy.

“Grey days are a staple here, huh?” Bucky asked, placing one of two stone coffee mugs on your desk, just as your phone vibrated just beside it.

He plunked down in the armchair he’d pulled up from another room before he went to try his hand at the coffee machine in your kitchen. He sat back comfortably, one leg bent up on the chair and the other stretched out under your desk, knee brushing up against yours. He was barefoot, wearing grey sweats and a black shirt, ordered courtesy of Veronica.

“Yeah, the days are grey, but the coffee is great,” you said, raising your mug in silent a thank you before taking a sip, ignoring your phone as you had since you woke up with that blissful, contented heat inside you. Bucky took a sip himself, the same blissed look on his face after the hot liquid touched his tongue.

“The Underworld does have heavenly coffee,” he agreed, reaching for your free hand resting on your desk. His large one enveloped it in a soft touch, as though it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world to want to hold you.

“You uh, don’t miss the sun though?” you asked, looking from your hands back to him, a heat on your cheeks. Bless him, he ignored whatever embarrassment and elation he saw on your face.

“I’ve traded in one sun for another, I think,” he said, soft smile and intent eyes staring right back at you over the rim of his mug.

You twisted your lips to try and keep from grinning like some love-sick fool, but you ended up turning back to your screen, the attempt to keep your pure pleasure from your expression failing. With a happy little smirk, Bucky took another sip, watching you work through the days’ case files.

Yes, your mornings used to be grey, slow, monotonous affairs. But not today. Today there was warmth and coy smiles, flowers and coffee, a large hand holding yours and a claim on your heart. Maybe you could admit it to yourself, but you wouldn’t yet tell the person who owned your heart. Not just yet anyway.

Bucky watched you work, contently sipping his coffee, watching your holographic screen or surveying the room, asking the occasional question.

“So Veronica handles some of the work?” he asked, halfway through his second cup of coffee for the morning.

“She’s pretty adept at it,” you said, clicking closed another case. “Learning our thinking and studying our patterns. She runs most if not all of the back-end of the business, it takes a lot off our plates.”

“Our?” he asked, tilting his head a little as you leaned back in your chair, savouring your second cup of coffee.

“I mean there are gods and goddesses with certain roles here,” you said, knowing he’d know that already. “But as far as sorting through all the dead and placing them in the right part of the Underworld, I have three full-timers who judge with me. Between them and Veronica, a good chunk is covered.”

“How many do you get a day? Dead souls to judge, I mean.”

You nodded him over as you got up, pulling him with you by the hand.

“Veronica, pull up the quarterly stats,” you called out, holding your coffee to your chest and walking towards the window with Bucky in tow.

The glass pane of the window flooded suddenly with light, the whole expansive area filling with glowing charts and specs, numbers, names, and cases. The whole thing became one see-through screen showing the details of the Underworld.

Bucky paused, a bit surprised by the display before stepping up beside you, the lights of your life’s work (well, for the last three months anyway) lighting up in his eyes.

“This is what I do,” you said before taking a sip, already knowing these numbers since as you mentioned it was your job too. “I mean like I said Veronica runs a lot of the backend stuff, but this level of oversight is what I do, mainly.”

You walked up to the glass, double tapping a section which expanded to fill the main square of the window-turned-screen, walking backwards to Bucky.

“That’s who we’ve put through today,” you said, the list of numbers coming up, seeming unending as Veronica scrolled through in demonstration. “And that’s maybe a third or more of the daily list we get? Mornings tend to be the bulk of the work, what with trying to make up for the night before.”

Bucky walked closer, eyes scanning the information.

“But there are no names?” Buck asked, looking to you.

“No, everyone who comes gets a case file; not that they’re aware of that,” you explained. “It’s easier on all fronts.”

“Not to judge but it seems kinda _impersonal_?” Bucky said, brows a bit pulled together as he looked at the hard data on the screen. “With numbers and charts instead of identities and personalities.”

You took a second, not exactly disagreeing with him, but what he saw wasn’t exactly the whole picture. It was a summary, sure. But the actuality of this job was certainly not quite as impersonal as it seemed. It wasn’t something you got into with anyone really, but Bucky was not just “anyone” to you anymore.

“You’re right and you’re wrong, because so much of this job is personal,” you said, an unvoiced sigh following. Bucky watched the slight drain on your face, a greyish colour subtly filling in just under your eyes. “I look at the entire life of someone, start to finish. As I read their case file I actually see and experience their entire life. I take in every moment, every bad deed and good. I look at someone’s innermost workings and thoughts. Everything. Then I have to judge them. Judge them for reacting in circumstances beyond their control. Beyond their capacity to handle. It’s a lot. It’s too much, actually. This is just how I… maybe how I cope. Boiling it down to the numbers so I can get up in the morning and start it all over again.”

Your gaze had remained distant, looking at something Bucky wasn’t able to see. But you blinked and came back to reality. Having snapped you out of that weary funk, you looked back to him with a tight smile.

“And practically, there are bound to be more than a few duplicate names coming through, so in that sense this works best to just use case numbers.”

He nodded, a thoughtful look on his face as he stood with the screen as his backdrop.

“I didn’t see this as so… I don’t know, _feeling_ maybe?” he said, watching you carefully. “Going through someone’s entire life… I don’t know, I probably shouldn’t comment on it, but I had no idea that what your job involved.”

“Most don’t,” you said with a knowing smile, relaxing your shoulders just a little. “Everyone has their views on what I do- which are always wrong, let me add- and I have better things to do with my time than explain it.”

You waved your hand like you were sweeping something to the side, and the window suddenly went back to being just a window. The dark grey and teal-green trees just on the outside of it the only colour shown.

Your phone buzzed again on the way back to your desk, and you looked at the screen.

“Well, I’d like to know more about it, and maybe learn how to help you,” Bucky said supportively before gesturing to the screen on your desk. “You could show me how to use this. When you’re not too busy, anyway.”

“Any of the hard or special cases come directly to me to preside on,” you said absently, reading the message on your screen then looking back up at him. He looked at you trying his best to be helpful. It was more than a little endearing. “Though I appreciate the offer- really I do- but this is something I have to do myself.”

You clicked your phone off, putting it in your pocket and crossed your arms. You leaned back on the desk, the look on your face shifting as you thought about how to approach what you wanted to talk to him about. You’d been putting it off, but by the messages you’ve been getting, that couldn’t last much longer.

But he beat you to it, somehow already knowing and not looking too enthused with it.

“Was it Natasha or Steve?” Bucky said, nodding to the phone hidden in your pocket. “Someone’s been texting you all morning, and it’s not about your work I’m guessing.”

“It has been Natasha and Steve, and some others too actually,” you started, chest getting tighter with each word. “They’re the ones who have been texting me all day. Or since late last night. They’re worried about you.”

You let that hang in the room, and but the slightly darkening expression, Bucky understood the meaning without you having to say it.

“They want me to come back,” he stated.

“They don’t know where you are, and to be clear I haven’t told them either,” you clarified. “But they are worried. You’ve disappeared before, and that was rather… disastrous.”

You didn’t have to elaborate on that one. He understood that instantly too.

“They are trying to figure out what happened,” you continued when he didn’t. “And to keep you safe from whatever it was that caused you to… not be _you_. It’s a rather significant thing to happen to a god but I’m sure I don’t have to explain that.”

“Would Thor make you give me back?” he asked suddenly, guarded and still standing rather farther than you wanted.

Unless he was _holding_ you he was too far for comfort. You felt your heart beating faster, as though it was trying to jump out of your chest and across the room just to be closer to him. Through that you tried to keep your expression neutral.

“Technically you need my permission to leave, just like you needed me to bring you here,” you said. “Now that you are here Thor doesn’t have too much of a say in it, and no one can take you away if I don’t allow it. My gig, remember. But that does _not_ come without repercussions. Very serious ones.”

You sighed, silently deciding you had to get into this.

“And I supposed there are other repercussions too, like not finding out or understanding what happened to you,” you added quietly. “And that might mean it could happen again. It really sounds like they just want to look out for you and not _let it_ happen again.”

Bucky shifted, looking down or around him, eyes scanning unseeing across the wall of books or out through the window.

“I haven’t told you much about it all,” Bucky said when you didn’t fill the silence, his face drawn and voice weary if not determined. “And you haven’t pushed it. I’m grateful for that, Y/N.”

You nodded to him, remaining quiet. It wasn’t as though you hadn’t _cared_ , and you bit your tongue from saying so, not wanting to interrupt him. It was just that whatever horrors you had heard whispered about Bucky when he was the Winter Soldier was not the person you saw now. Wasn’t the person you felt so much for.

He hadn’t talked about it all yet, and he seemed happy not too. And nothing in you wanted him to be anything but overwhelming, blissfully happy. Bringing him here was enough to jeopardize that to begin with. You knew somewhere deep down he was still trying to heal from it, and you were fine to let to let him do that on his own terms.

And whatever threat that person he was caused was not a threat to you. Maybe that’s what drew him into you in the first place? It wasn’t as though he could kill you, the worst of his offenses and one that left him cautious and distant from the others who were more vulnerable than you. And so what if he did? He’d kill you to what, send you right back home? Hardly an issue with you.

“They see me as that… _person_ still,” he said sourly as though it was poison in his mouth. “Or maybe the threat of being that person again. And I’m not. I won’t be. And you? You’re just different Y/N. You see me as _me_. I don’t have to be anyone else than who I am. Do you get that?”

He brought a fist up to his chest, absently clutching above his heart, eyes fringed with imploring. You walked over to him, his chest heaving with anxiety. He hated talking about this, you could see it in eyes, in his body. The trauma, though over, still held on to him.

“Bucky, the choice is yours,” you said, a hand on his arm and one reaching up gently to his cheek, brushing your thumb lightly across his skin. “You can stay here, or you can leave. But please tell your friends what that choice is?”

It took a moment, but he nodded, eyes blinking away the pleading to one of understanding.

This placed wasn’t precisely a home to you, but a sanctuary of sorts. It could be the same for Bucky too. If he wanted it to be, and if he chose it the right way, you would happily keep him here with you forever.

* * *

 

Some hours later it was just about time. You and Bucky were in the front hall, waiting together just by the front doors.

Bucky held both of your hands in his, bringing them up to his lips and kissing our skin gently. Those ocean blue eyes of his remained on yours, transfixed as though he saw something captivatingly beautiful you had managed to miss every time you looked in a mirror.

“I’ll go see them and talk with them,” he said softly. “But I’m coming back.”

“Cerberus would be a mess if you didn’t,” you joked. “So you better.”

He about beamed at that, proud to have won over the beast that no-one else had ever successfully wooed. Despite being a god from Thor’s living realm, you had to admit Bucky really did have a way with beings from the Underworld.

“Hey, before you go,” you said, pulling him back to you as he stepped away, ready to head out to the gods who would be arriving at the gate soon. “You should probably- I don’t know- maybe kiss me?”

A crooked smirk grew on his face, arms immediately wrapping around you securely and head leaning down towards you as though on instinct.

“Oh? Why’s that Y/N,” he said, that combination of smug joyfulness playing in his eyes.

You ran your hands up his chest and round to the back of his neck, sliding your fingers through his hair. You could feel him tingle under you, a dazed look clouding his eyes before the smirk grew.

“Well, if you must know,” you toyed. “I happen to like the smell of flowers and sun now, thanks to you.”

“Oh?” he said, metal hand finding its way under your shirt.

The cold feel of it shot electricity up your spine, causing you to jerk up on your tiptoes with a bit of a gasp. Bucky took the opportunity and sealed his lips to yours, hungrily taking you in. Your mouth open slightly from the surprise of his cold metal hand on your skin, Bucky moved with tongue across your lips and in to meet your tongue.

You silently gasped for a different reason now, melting completely under his warm, hungry touch. You could feel him smile into the kiss as you gripped his hair tighter, pulling him down and into you even more. His tight arms around you were bracing, molding your bodies together as distantly through the heat of wanting you felt the velvet feel of vines wrapping around you.

A moment later that jasmine and lavender and floral scent filled the air and your lungs, blooms sprouting by the dozens all around you now, bursting quickly in a bright multitude of colours. That scent reminded you of him now, of his touch on your skin and his lips pressed lovingly and rapturously to yours. The overwhelming floral scent made you dizzier than he was already making you, your mind and body and soul revolving completely around him when he kissed you like this.

You broke away with a final gasp, an intoxicated heaviness to your lids and you looked through your lashes at the man, still bound to you with arms holding you fast and vines encircling you. You saw it on his flushed face and in those expressive eyes as clear as day: pure devotion, intoxicated wanting, and soul-consuming love for you too.

The kiss almost had your knees weak, but that look he had, his face hovering right up to yours just about dissolved your very bones. If not for his grip and the plants weaving around the pair of you, you would have melted into the floor.

“Well,” he said, swallowing down the same ache you were feeling, to kiss him again and never let it stop. “Hopefully you’ll miss me less now.”

You didn’t have to look around the room or even around your own body to know that there were innumerable flowers and blooms here now to keep you company in his absence. Moreover, you didn’t want to look away just yet.

“No,” you whispered back to him, leaning down to rest your head on his flowered, leafy shoulder. “I think unless you’re holding me, I’ll always miss you.”

He moved his hands from your back, creaking and snapping as vines and branches broke, and cupped your cheek.

“Same here, darling,” he said softly. “I think for me it was like that from the beginning, even before I first held you.”

You wanted to stay like this, in this bubble of serenity and contentment. But your phone buzzed again, and there was no real surprise who it would be.

“They’re here,” you said without checking your phone, trying to keep a tinge of sadness from your voice.

You straightened up, more cracking and creaking as you broke free from the plants binding you. You took a step back, taking in the god before you, flowers and leafs both clinging and falling off from him as the pair of you moved apart.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise,” he said, trying to sound light and easy.

It wasn’t even that big a deal, you tried to remind yourself. He wasn’t actually leaving the Underworld, just going up to the gate and talking with his friends on the other side. They would technically stay in one realm, Bucky would stay in yours. That was it. Nothing to get concerned over, nothing to feel sad over.

But you couldn’t help but feel both concerned and sad for reasons you couldn’t understand. Why did this feel like a bad thing? Why did this make your chest tight and apprehension constrict your throat?

He would come back. They wouldn’t be able to convince him to change his mind. Bucky would stay with you, and that would be that.

Right?

He leaned in and kissed the top of your head, pressing a final little devotion into your hair. You wanted that kiss all over you, but instead you watched as he gave you a nod and opened the door, walking away.

* * *

 

You’d been in the garden, which was more than a little unusual for you. But you hadn’t been able to focus on work and, to be honest, you loved this garden now because it reminded you of him.

For the last hour and a half you had been in here, lying on the ground or walking along the granite path in the darkening twilight. You’d stopped and gently touched every flower you came upon, looked up and studied the soon to be blooming fruit trees scattered around, dipped your toes in the deep dark water. Nothing in the shadowy green garden could distract you much, but it made you feel closer to him.

The only other feeling you had that had steadily grown was unease.

You weren’t foolish. You never had been. You knew your gut feelings were something to take seriously, but lately there had been so _many_ feelings it was hard to tell if this was just overly-clingy, love-sick worry that gripped you.

Despite wanting to walk outside and to the gates, you knew you shouldn’t. You ruled this realm and ultimately you wanted Steve and whoever else that was with him to know that whatever Bucky’s decision was coming from Bucky himself. You didn’t want to be the big bad Goddess of the Underworld hovering over his shoulder as though coercing him to stay against his will.

You figured Natasha would be there, hopefully on your side if it actually came down to an argument. But everyone knew the rules. Maybe Bucky only just got the gist of them from you recently, but it wasn’t surprising that this meetup was taking so long. You figured the others were going through all those repercussions you were warning him about in detail, you just hoped it didn’t have to come down to an argument.

You sighed, running a hand through your hair and shook your head a bit. You were a patient person but though the length of this wasn’t surprising, you hardly enjoyed waiting for it to be over.

“Veronica,” you called out, making your way out down the path to the archways, not sure exactly what your plan was but just knowing you had to do something. “Are they still out there?”

“No, Y/N,” came a cool reply from the A.I.

You frowned, exiting the garden and walked over to the hallway security panel. You pulled up a digital map of the property, which would show anyone inside the house or up to the property line including the gate.

“How long since the meeting was over?” you asked, a bit confused. The house was big so maybe Bucky had just been looking for you?

“Approximately an hour,” said Veronica.

“What?! An _hour_?” you said, shocked. “An entire hour. Are you sure?”

“Quite, Y/N.”

You really did not need to question you A.I. but an _hour_? If it had been that long where was Bucky?

You moved the touch screen around until you saw it. You had already found your dot on the map, showing you were in this hallway standing by this panel. But as you searched you saw that there was only one other dot in the whole of the property. It was in your office.

You took off down the hall, walking fast as you went.

Maybe something had gone wrong? Maybe Bucky just needed some time alone. That would be more than understandable. You just couldn’t think of why he would go to your office of all places.

You opened up the office door, no lights on inside despite the dark of night settling into the space.

Across the large room, standing just by the desk was a figure, their back to you and their identity covered by the shadows.

“Bucky?” you called out, taking a step or two into the room. “Is that you? What’re you doing in here?”

As the figured turned you recognized them instantly. And you knew it wasn’t Bucky at all.

A wall of emotions hit you like a ton of granite to your chest and the whites and colour of your eyes turned their icy glacial blue. Your fists clenched and lip curled as pure power began to roll off you in waves, directed solely at the intruder.

“ _Answer me_ ,” you called out, voice like thunder and as furious as any storm. “ _What are you doing here_?”


	7. What Have You Done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that there is a fight scene in this chapter, I've updated the warnings accordingly

“ _Answer me_ ,” you called out, voice like thunder and as furious as any storm. “ _What are you doing here_?”

You could feel every emotion stabbing through you like a knife, so sharp it sliced down to the bone and so blistering hot it seared you.

As the figure turned to you, he swiped is hand- just as you had shown him- as though sweeping something away. The action caused the holographic screen behind him to turn off, hiding whatever it was he was doing at your workstation. 

But you had seen enough. You knew enough of what he had done and the hint of damage he had just caused you. Somewhere in among all those bitterly sharp emotions, you hoped you had interrupted before too much harm was done.

Those blue eyes locked to yours when he faced you, the god standing as though a statue. As you watched him you felt a pit in your stomach- that gut instinct of something wrong in your realm- churn and twist your insides, as you knew the harm caused was going to be in no small measure.

You felt your ancient power course through you in response, threatening to overpower every furious, desperate, agonizing emotion inside. Gods, you vibrated with both in equal and terrible measure, caught between leveling the person and or crying out in heartbreak.

Under his gaze the colour of your eyes disappeared, the whole of your eyes turning into that icy glacial blue. It meant danger to the ones who saw it. It was a threat of the highest degree and should make the man in front of you quake with fear, though stoic he remained.

You could hear the crackling of power in the air, zaps and snaps of something sounding akin to electricity sounding off in the room. Fists clenched and breath coming fast, you were an inch from breaking him or yourself in half.

He didn’t speak, didn’t move from his spot. Those eyes, like galaxies and oceans combined together, looked at you. The look was dead. It was lifeless. You saw a frigidness there, an uncompromising and unfeeling harshness, deeper than any winter.

They weren’t the eyes you knew. They weren’t the ones you loved, gazing on you with softness or hunger or wanting or smugness or vulnerability or love.

There was nothing but emptiness, black and dead. This wasn’t the person you knew at all.

“Bucky,” you said, the word hissed as though it was pure venom, knowing that that was not who he was anymore. “What did you _do_?”

The Winter Soldier, in the emotionless flesh, was in the Underworld, in your office, set on some mission by some god or goddesses. And the damage he could have done may be irreparable.

“Was this… was this all just,” you said, trying to keep your voice from breaking, but you had to ask. You _had_ to know. “You being here with me. Was that just to infiltrate this place, so you could what, raise the dead?”

He didn’t answer. The only thing he did was walk towards you, crossing the room with purpose and the first flash of emotion in his eyes. Your stomach dropped, knowing that look well. It was a look of murder. A look of impending death.

“If you want a fight,” you said, air crackling and fury taking over again. “You better be prepared to _lose_ , God of Spring.”

No weapons on him, wearing the same clothes he did when he left, Bucky still had a brutal piece of weaponry at his disposal. His metal arm swung out, aimed directly at your chest. It was forged by a god- Tony, the God of Metalworking no less- and could cause more damage than you thought when you first saw it. You remembered that tentative metal hand grabbing onto the glass of whiskey you brought him up on the balcony that night. It felt like an age ago.

But now as his weapon of an arm swung hard to strike you, your hand caught his fist, shockwaves cascading out like tidal waves. You stopped the fist as though you were made of immovable stone. The skin on your fist had turn to that same icy colour of your eyes and it worked its way down your arm like frost. All across your body your skin turned, as though your true frame was revealing itself. You were a thing of the Underworld, and now it showed. And a god of the Underworld couldn’t die, and goddesses like you wouldn’t lose.

You heard a metallic crunch under your clasped fist, and it spurred the Winter Soldier into action. His other fist came up to hit you hard in the ribs, meaning to send you off balance but you were nothing if not all-powerful in your realm.

“Stop _fighting_ me,” you said, the timbre of our voice shaking the walls. It was both command and plea in one.

_This was a suicide mission!_ you thought to yourself painfully, knowing how this had to end. _How could he possibly_ hope _win against you?_

Bucky retched his arm away, stepping back before kicking out with powerful force. His foot connected with your abdomen and it sent you crashing through the office doors and careening down the hall, the sound like a mountain crumbling to the ground. You slid to a stop and reflexively shot out your hand, seeing the flash of a figure moving to attack. Bucky stopped short, held above you with your hand clamped around his throat, squeezing. 

He was broader and more muscled than you to be sure, his height leaving you dwarfed under him. But again, he was no match for your strength. Not here.

With blinding speed you sprung up and slammed him down on his back, the force cracking the floor and sounding like lightning. His hand went to grip yours, trying to get loose but your fingers only tightened on him. In fury and pain you punch him, hitting him hard and mercilessly in the face once. Then again. And again.

You kept hitting him, the gold colour of his blood splattering up the walls and the artwork. It covered his split open face and your fist. As your tears blinded your vision, mixing with the gold liquid, you stopped. Your breath heaved and your body shook as somewhere inside you your soul screamed in torment against your mind screaming to attack.

You moved off him, wiping your bloodied hands on your bloodied face, blinking away the tears as they formed.

“Tell me _why_ ,” you said again, this time the powerful command gone and only a pathetic pleading remained.

The Winter Soldier struggled to get up, swayed by the dizzying, damaging pain you had inflicted on him. But that still didn’t stop him, emotionlessly relentless.

He had you pinned in a moment, the weight of his body on top of yours. He held you down, beating you without pause or restraint, his metal fist connecting with your flesh again and again.

You spoke once through the onslaught, voice quiet and removed, gargled with blood. You shouldn’t have said anything. You knew you weren’t talking to your Bucky. Not really. But this howling pain in your soul needed an escape, even if just a whispered one.

“I miss you, Bucky,” you said, hushed and spitting blood.

The blows to your face paused and sputtered to a halt. You looked up through tears to the man pinning you. His face was aghast, a spark of recognition in his eyes. Tears were in his own eyes, looking down on you with a horror you had never seen so sharp in anyone.

You pushed him off of your body with a gasp, clutching at your heart. It was like it was physically splitting in two in that moment, ripped in half at the sight of him, what he had done, and what he was doing to you.

Because you could see it in him now as he crouched there: horror, confusion, pain, recognition.

Before you could do or say anything, behind you came a growl more deadly than even you were, so loud and venomous it shook the windows in their panes and brought the art on the walls crashing to the floor. In tandem, a red alarm went flashing through your home, a garnet warning of something terrible happening outside these walls.

Whatever or whoever Bucky had released were out of containment. All hell was about to break loose in the Underworld now.

Cerberus stalked forward, now lit up by the deep red colour of the alarm. He had morphed, his most dangerous three-headed form on display and ready to tear his once friend apart. Three pairs of ruby, violent eyes moved toward Bucky, Cerberus’s target locked in his crosshairs.

“Get out,” you said, words quiet in between your panting.

Cerberus continued to move, coming up right behind you. You grabbed onto his fur and clutched at it as you brought yourself to your feet. You felt three exhales of breath around you, filling the room with a blistering heat. It made your blue and ice cold skin steam, with smokey tendrils wisping off of you.

“I said _get out_!” you yelled, fists clenching and body beginning to shake again.

You shouldn’t let him go. You _couldn’t_ let him go.

He broke your trust. Broke into your system. He raised the dead, causing untold havoc and potentially doomed everyone, both living and dead, mortal and god alike. 

All because you fell in love.

Bucky needed to stay. You needed him to tell you exactly what he had done, why he had done it, and by whose orders.

But the other Underworld gods would be here in droves. Everyone would be convening here to handle this or die trying.

And the only punishment possible for a crime like was death.

Even with your face split open and bloodied, your heart shredded in unspeakable agony, and the balance of your realm turned on it head… You _still_ couldn’t do it. You knew you wouldn’t be able too.

You remembered flowers. You remembered kisses and touches and “I miss you”’s. You remembered him holding your hand and bringing you coffee. You remembered cheeky grins and smug little whispers. You remembered being wrapped up in his arms and the feel of that warmth of love, more blissful than you had ever felt.

Fresh tears sprung to your eyes, torment in your soul too much to bear as you couldn’t reconcile any of this. In the red flashing Bucky got to his feet, face and fists still dripping. He backed away slowly, a million feelings dancing in his eyes. When he caught sight of his hands, he looked back up at your face, connecting the blood on his knuckles to the blood on your face.

“ _Get out_!” you screamed, fury and agony unhinged. “ _Just get out and leave me!_ ”

To your pain and heartbreak and bitter relief, Bucky took off, slow and stumbling before running through the front doors. You turned and clutched onto Cerberus, half keeping him in place and half using him as some kind of comfort. The beast roared and snarled after Bucky, furious and biting, while you couldn’t bring yourself to watch him leave.

You knew he was gone when Cerberus growls and snarls turned into one sad whimper. You looked up, face scrunched in pain at your friend and protector.

“Come with me,” you said, voice hoarse and cracked. You took off running back to your office, fuelled by your spiraling, unending emotions. You paid no attention to the splintered doors hanging on their hinges and went right to your workstation.

“Veronica,” you choked, wiping the blood and tears from your eyes. “Pull up everything single thing Bucky touched while he was in here.”

Flashes of information came up on the screen instantly. The more you saw the wider your eyes became. A moment later the office window suddenly filled with more information, colour dancing ominously in the dark night.

_No_.

_No, no, no, no…_

You ran both hands through your hair, gripping your head as you looked at the damage he had caused. Your mouth hung open and dread filled you to your core.

“No, no, no, no, _no_!” you yelled, the desperate sound ringing out.

_What had he done?_


	8. The Ambush

The downtown core was a place of black glassed skyscrapers filled with tidy men and women in sharp suits and pencil skirts. It was the hub of the Underworld, a busy business district consumed with the running of the realm. Gods and goddesses, nymphs and the like filled countless offices, walking through white marbled lobbies and up polished mirrored elevators to deal with the daily running of things.

Three weeks ago it was plunged into chaos and you weren’t quite sure any semblance of calm had settled back into your downtown core.

Your boardroom, up on the top floor of the tallest building, had become command central in these past weeks. A frantic flurry of activity with papers and files, screen and tablets, people and chaos filling it to the brim. The boardroom table could fit sixty people comfortably but from that first moment you ran in, face covered with blood and an ice-cold demeanor as your top officials gathered around you, it felt stiflingly small.

“Hela,” you spat, not bothering to turn around as the black-haired beauty stalked in with her usual commanding presence. The scuttling away of nymphs was usually a telltale sign she was here. “Tell me you’re not _actually_ here right now.”

You were elbow deep in files and charts, scanning and throwing anything of interest to the minions bustling around you. Gods and goddesses of the Underworld were sitting, standing, running all around you to get work done and this mess under control. Chatter was a constant now, talk and debate and barked orders sounding off from every corner of this top floor boardroom. The franticness wasn’t just contained here. You knew it ran through the whole sixty story building and the downtown core besides.

“Because if you’re _here_  that means you aren’t out _there_ , doing your damn job,” you said, handing a file to one of your assistants who gave you a sympathetic look (gods, you hated it when she did that) before running off. You turned to Hela, walking across the expanse of the room to the goddess, footfalls echoing on the white granite.

“I’ve only come to say, it’s worse than you thought,” she said with a hand on her hip, as though her words justified her presence here at all and didn’t exasperate you. 

Somehow, though Hela was working just as tirelessly as everyone else, she looked as flawless as always. In black leather with deep green accents, she fit the part of classic Underworld Goddess to be sure.

“You’re one of my right-hand goddesses,” you said to her. “So that’s something you _can’t_ say to me. Not after _weeks_ of dealing with this. I swear to every last god in here if you-”

“Fine, here’s the good news then,” she said with a smirk on her face. “The Meadow is contained and the soul’s memories wiped. So no more bad little flashbacks of the _whole of Tartarus_ stampeding in and causing a rather gruesome scene.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, muttering. “Oh gods, I can still hear the screams.”

“Oh no sweetie,” Hela went on. “That’s the people in Tartarus _now_. That’s the news you’re not going to like. We’ve had to completely scrap the second and third level containment and chuck them all in with the first.”

“ _What_?!”

At the noise sharp noise, the nymphs around you scattered. Typically, at least in a setting like work where you were boss, you were reserved, diplomatic and generally held a “firm but fair” kind of attitude. You didn’t find it particularly appropriate to act anything but purely professional (however the _other_ rulers might run things in their realms).

And you had been trying- desperately so- for weeks to hang on to that persona, but gods, it was a struggle. Not to mention every nymph in the room expecting you to crack at any moment.

“Can’t be helped,” Hela shrugged easily, studying her long black nails. “When the gates opened they practically demolished the whole infrastructure of the two containment blocks. It was that or have them stay in the Meadow.”

You ground your fingers into your hips, breathing in slowly through your teeth. Nothing was balanced anymore, and for what felt like the hundredth time recently, you simply had to grit your teeth and deal with it. Given time you could fix all this, but there were still much bigger issues.

“What, it’s not like they can _kill_ each other in there,” Hela pointed out, not mentioning the fact that they would certainly torture each other and it would also be torture trying to get them out. “Beside, the second level was always somewhat of a joke anyways. It should have been three cell blocks and not four to begin with.”

You rolled your eyes at her- since there definitely _was_ reason to split up the souls of Tartarus into specific levels- but you couldn’t feign disapproval. You were far too weary and there was far too much to do for that. But regardless of your exhaustion, you began to take a turn about the room.

You had stood still all of thirty seconds in weeks so it was hard to even have a conversation standing in one spot now. Hela matched your stride as you walked around the room and reconciled the newest development she brought you. Everyone was used to it now, stepping in turn with you as you worked and talked and thought.

Walking up to the window, the grey misty morning shrouded near everything below you. It looked quiet out there- steady and calm- and you wished for those days back. For some of that calm in your soul and heart too.

Hela, the Goddess of Witchcraft and Necromancy (and party-goer by all accounts), found the monotony you so coveted to be a bore. She loved action and a challenge so you had leaned on her heavily in the last weeks, as you did many you commanded. She was selfish (self admittedly) and in most regards a friend. One you could rely on, even if it meant you rolled your eyes at least once for every minute she was with you.

With that development handled (for now) by her, it was time to get back to the bigger picture again.

“What count are we at?” you called out to the crowd whose cacophony shushed to a murmur at your voice.

Someone pulled up the number on a large screen at the end of the boardroom. You walked closer and grabbed the back of a thick leather desk chair, face stoic and emotionless though internally you felt your chest constrict. The big, bold number stared you in the face and weighed heavy on you, as it had for a while.

Four hundred and forty-seven.

That number had been in the thousands just weeks ago at the start of this all, but for the last few days it remained in the four hundreds. That meant you had four hundred and forty-seven dead souls wandering in the land of the living still. _Four hundred and forty-seven_.

And you had _no_ idea who they were.

Your _intruder_ had gotten into your office and caused havoc, covering his tracks well. Or at least the chaos he incited did. Gates were opened, containment unlocked, borders turned into mere suggestions. But the biggest thorn in your side? Whole case files were deleted. Wiped clean without a trace.

Massive swathes of them- more than those who escaped- were simply gone. You had no idea who _exactly_ was here and no idea who _exactly_ was out there, not without going through every person in the whole of the Underworld one by one and compare the hard copy backups. It was complete madness and logistically the most time-consuming disaster possible.

First, you had to get the West Gate closed, though some souls had already escaped after a particularly brutal onslaught of souls from the less-than-desirable parts of the Underworld. That in itself was quite the task.

Next was to get the most vile and dangerous of creatures back into the Tartarus cells they were locked in. No small feat either, considering there were some creatures there that rivaled your own powers, as they were the most ancient and cruel beings to ever curse this world.

Some small mercies remained at least. The fourth cell block hadn’t been opened. Thor and his gods were alerted (you did not want to relive _that_ phone call ever again) and had teamed up with your gods to get this under control, like repairing the damaged West Gate from the outside or on finding the dead souls in their realm.

Here, of course, it was all hands on deck, with gods like Thanos, God of the Dead, pulling one shift of his normal work bringing death to the living, then pulling a double to get the dead back from the living realm. He acted as though he was some divine gift, but he got the job done. Hela was working constantly (even if her solutions were a little more “creative” than you would prefer), though seemed to be loving it, commanding and rounding up wayward souls within the Underworld. This whole thing was an administrative and mental nightmare.

And you still didn’t know _why_ it happened to begin with.

Your phone buzzed as an assistant waddled into the boardroom, balancing a tower of lattes and coffees. It was like seagulls to a french fry; suddenly every person except you was on the poor nymph to get a cup of caffeine.

Seeing the coffee-deprived mass, you didn’t want to think of the amount of overtime you’d have to give out or the end of the year bonuses you’d feel obliged to give.

“Hey Nat,” you said, pinning your phone between your ear and shoulder, flipping through another file. “How’s the war on your front?”

“The gate’s coming along,” she said, sounding like her usual unphased self. “Should only be another week, though that’s only if we can keep Tony from improving on the original design.”

“Please,” you scoffed. “He knows you only have _half_ the design. I have to keep the other part under wraps, if only for my security and sanity. There is no way he’s “improving” on anything when he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.”

“Yeah but he’s still going to try,” she replied. “It’s that awful looking design he wanted to hang up last week. He keeps harping on it so I’d brace yourself for that now.”

“Oh gods,” you said, dropping the file and rolling your eyes. “Don’t tell me he’s actually considering making that thing.”

“The Las Vegas-style Underworld sign? Oh yeah. He is.”

_For the love of all the unholy gods in this place._

“Alright, I’m coming down there,” you said, loud enough to let your assistant and Hela know, who gestured flippantly as she took a long sip of the burning liquid. 

Not bothering to look up, Hela rubbed her hands and dove into the files, barking orders at the crowd of nymphs that surrounded her. You at least knew with her here things would still get done.

* * *

“Where did you come from?” Tony asked incredulously, giving you a quick hug as he looked over your shoulder.

From this side, the day was sunny and bright and the West Gate, although under some serious construction with scaffolding and gods dotted up the walls and on the ground, looked like a gate. Ten stories high it was impressive, with black polished metal and ornate stone. Walls of teal leafed trees went right up to it, lining the wide black paved road too. On the ground between those massive trunks were an endless amount of small blue flowers. Ones you did you absolute best to not see.

Yes, it was an impressive feat of architecture, but nothing compared to the what it looked like within the Underworld.

On your side, it opened up to a hybrid of a fortress and an international airport, with security in the form of military personnel (their numbers now tripled) and enough checkpoints to blow the brains out of the most patient person. You, being in charge of all this, had your own private way in and out, shrouded in mist and magic from anyone but yourself.

“Trade Underworld secrets, I’m afraid,” you said, releasing him with a pat on the shoulder. You squinted in the sunlight, used to the grey misty morning from your realm.

Scanning through the crowd from the edge of a black asphalt road, Natasha caught sight of you and made her way over, leaving behind a group of nymphs with schematics in hand. You much preferred to stay out of the way of this all, really not having time to get caught up on the details of the extensive repairs. You had people under you to do that.

“Tell me the sign hasn’t already been put up,” you said, shielding your eyes from the sun as you looked up to the top of the gate. Nothing there really, surprisingly.

“What sign?” Tony asked, looking from you to Nat as she stepped up to you two. “My sign? I thought that was vetoed! Well, don’t worry I can have that made in no time flat. I c–”

“Tony,” you said emphatically. “I said no to the sign. My gate, my call. _No sign_.”

“Fine, fine,” he said. “Don’t put my creative genius to good use. It’s not like the dreary entrance to the Underworld could use a bit of flash.”

The god walked away in a bit of a huff, and you were somewhat thankful not to have this argument again. One crisis averted at least. But as you watched him get back into the thick of things, you couldn’t help but frown. Turning to the redhead beside you, you studied her carefully.

If there was one thing Natasha was, it was capable. And she could certainly handle Tony of all people.

After a moment of watching her too-blank look, you took a deep, slow breath through your nose.

She did this _every single_ time. Natasha could always manipulate you in doing exactly what she wanted, didn’t she?

 _Damn it_.

“Okay, Nat,” you said, holding back a sigh and crossing your arms. You nodded over to a spot further removed from the fray of work, standing just under the cover of the teal-leafed trees. “Why am I actually here?”

Her expression was a picture of unassuming innocence, and you did not buy it for a second.

“We needed clarity on a few of the magical elements that’ll be put in place,” she started, not denying the ruse. If whatever this was couldn’t be said over the phone, it had to be bad. “We’re not seeing something ri–”

“No,” you said, voice firm and hard. “No. You didn’t call me up here for that either. Tell me now. No bullshit.”

She paused, taking you in with those perceptive eyes of her. You must have been a sight to see.

The bags under your eyes were more like suitcases, the grey palour of your face not helping convince anyone you were actually sleeping. Not to mention how bloodshot your eyes were too. Your jaw was always tight now, teeth clenched. Your shoulders were high up and tense, always braced for something though you couldn’t say what. You fidgeted though you wanted to be still, your voice was overused and hoarse, you had the same outfit on as you had for the last three days… The list went on, but basically, you were a visible, veritable mess.

And that didn’t include how you were doing on the inside. Which was so much worse.

“Alright,” she said, crossing her arms casually. “No bullshit. But you aren’t going to like it.”

“I don’t like much about my life right now Nat,” you said dully. “I think I’ll be able to handle it.”

Though your expression remained stony and you act unaffected, your stomach dropped because you knew who it was about.

“We have to talk about him,” she said firmly though not completely unkind.

Somehow it felt like your stomach sank beyond the confines of your body, plummeting deep into the ground. Your mouth went dry and your battered, cracked heart stopped beating in your chest.

“Y/N, you look at the dead and judge them every day,” she started as you tried to hold yourself together. Outwardly you didn’t so much as blink. “You’re amazing at what you do because you can look at someone and know who they are. Know if they’re good or bad and where they belong.”

She paused, hesitating slightly. Your guts twisted and body begged to move, to flee from this pain, as Natasha continued with voice low and honest.

“People see brokenness, see untrustworthiness when they see Bucky,” There it was. That pain that almost knocked you down to your knees whenever you thought of or heard _his_ name. It was like you were reliving that awful, bloody night with him all over again. “You see something _vastly_ different in him. You see the good.”

She was right. You saw good in him. So much good. You saw a vitality and a calm and a confidence and so much in him that no one could see. That he couldn’t see. But you knew. You had fallen for him instantly.

It was terrifying.

Because you’d let him back in your life in a heartbeat and risk this all over again.

And what kind of ruler did that make you? You were literally looking at the destruction it had caused, felt the fallout from this every bitter second.

“And you know where he belongs.”

You bit your tongue from asking where, wanting her to say “with you”, as though you needed some kind of pathetic permission to think so. For the millionth time, you forced yourself to remember you were _the_ Goddess of the Underworld and to try and act like it. On the outside, you did your best not to give her anything.

Gods, you had to try and think clearly. You had more on your shoulders, more people and responsibilities than just one person. Particularly when you were so blinded by your love for them that you risked destroying _everything_.

“Y/N,” Nat said, pursing her lips and showing no signs of giving up on this. “There’s something you don–”

You cut her off before she could continue.

“I think I’d rather finished cleaning up from the last time I decided to give in to that kind of illusion again,” you said stoically, swallowing down your bits of heartbreak. “Thanks for bringing this up and again to remind me. Much obliged.”

“Look, you said no bullshit,” she said pointing at you. “You could do me the same courtesy here.”

You pulled back from Nat at the sound of Steve’s motorcycle careening down the black asphalt. His silver and blue bike carried him just to the side of the road where the two of you were. You closed your eyes, too tired to place your head in your hands out of exhaustion.

 _Oh great_.

After the roaring rumble of the engine cut out, Steve slid off his bike smoothly, releasing the locks of blonde hair from his helmet. He was clad in his typical dark navy ensemble and looked like a vision set against a bright blue sky that matched his eyes.

“Hey Y/N,” he said, walking up to your little circle. You opened your eyes and smiled, the grin coming out more like a grimace.

You gave the statuesque god a quick hug, stepping back and crossing your arms again the moment you released him. This was feeling more like an ambush every minute.

Clearly, Nat had been step one. Welcome in, step two.

“The God of Justice is here? Uh oh,” you joked humourlessly before he could speak, making him frown sympathetically. “I guess it’s time I paid for all this mess, huh.”

“This isn’t your fault, Y/N,” he said pointedly and rather soft, hands on his hips. “You didn’t choose this.”

“No? Didn’t I?” you said, voice getting more bitter with every word. “Well, you’re right I guess. This wasn’t a choice at all, just a demonstration of pure stupidity.”

“No one thinks that,” Nat said, matching Steve’s tone. “Trust us.”

“I don’t think I’m in a particularly trusting mood of _anyone_ , thanks very much,” you mumbled, shaking your head. That had nothing to do with them and everything to do with your apparently clear inability to make good choices. To be the damn ruler of your damn queendom.

“Well, you probably shouldn’t,” Steve sighed, casting a glance at Nat with those blue eyes.

“What do you mean?” you asked, eyeing the two of them.

“What I was trying to say a minute ago,” Nat continued, seeming hesitant again. “We need you to talk with Bucky.”

“Why _would_ I?” you said incredulously.

“Why not?” Steve asked, full well knowing why.

“Because I’m still dealing with _this_ disaster!” you half shouted at them, trying your best to keep the swelling rise of cold fury at bay.

“Well, you don’t know what happened–”

“I do know,” you spat. “He went to see you two and came back to destroy everything in my life. Well, mission accomplished!”

“Y/N,” Nat said slow and quietly. “He didn’t see us that night. We weren’t there.”

You paused, getting a momentary feeling of whiplash as this new information hit you. The words didn’t compute right away as you stood there with them.

… What did they mean they weren’t there?

“Who did he meet than?” you asked, voice substantially quieter.

“We don’t know,” Steve said ruefully. “That’s why we need your help. Something came up just before we were supposed to meet and we couldn’t get there. I texted you to say as much. Whoever _was_ with him triggered him.”

You stilled at that information, not from feigned indifference but from shock. You thought back to that painful night. You hadn’t checked your phone before sending him off, or while you wandered in the garden waiting. And the flurry of activity after the fight was a complete blur of alarms and sirens and chaos.

“Y/N, he thinks you can help him. Help him remember something from that night,” Steve said while you stood there numbly. “He says he’s never felt more like himself, had more clarity than with you around. Says he _was_ himself around you. He just wants to understand what happened. At least to try to before this happens again.”

“So what, you want him to stay here with _me_ again?!” you said dumbfounded.

“Gods, no!” Nat interjected quickly. “Whoever is manipulating him clearly wanted Bucky here, or at least took advantage of it. We seriously can’t have that happened again.”

“No shit,” you said quietly, rolling your eyes.

“Will you just talk with him,” Steve begged, as only those bright blue eyes could. “Please, Y/N.”

You swallowed, turning away from them and shaking your head as emotions and thoughts rattled painfully around inside of you.

“I can’t leave here,” you shrugged, trying to dismiss this whole thing out of hand if only to save yourself for more heartbreak. It was both incredibly selfish and selfless, all things considered. “It won’t work. I have too much to do and fix and oversee.”

“You’re right,” Nat agreed darkly. “All we know now is someone from Thor’s realm- _our_ realm- triggered Bucky back into the Winter Soldier. It isn’t safe for him out here, Y/N. We need to figure this out now. And _in_ your realm.”

“For all our sake’s,” Steve added. “Please.”

The Winter Soldier could do damage anywhere, of that you knew. A lesser god would have been killed by him. Why you had to put your realm at risk you could understand- since you were probably one of the few that could be trusted and had the power to control an arising situation- but obviously that bitterly went against what you logically believed to be in _any_ sense safe for the Underworld. At the moment you weren’t sure what your heart believed. Whether it wanted to see Bucky one more time or not.

Regardless of the decision, you decided to settle on an emotion to feel instead. That particular one was going to be “anger” since that was the less pain-filled option right now.

“So you are asking him to come here again,” you said, just about ready to punch both of them, though you doubted it would do any good at this point. “And how the hell am I supposed to explain that to every _freaking_ person I work with?”

“Your house,” Steve offered, face scrunched up like he was anticipating that blow you wanted to give. “You have a private entrance and there’ll be no official record of him entering. I’ll take a leap here and say you haven’t left your headquarters in days. You can just tell the others you need a couple hours to rest.”

“You’d have to take precautions of course,” Nat added quickly. “And none of us can tell a soul.”

“I’ve already removed all access to privileged information from the house, and Cerberus will literally tear him to pieces if he steps an inch out of line,” you said dully, absolutely hating this plan as it came together.

You sighed, feeling your anger slipping and too many other emotions bubbling up for your weary body to process. This suddenly became too much to deal with and too much to fight. You had enough on your plate already.

“Let’s figure this out,” Nat whispered, leaning into you. “Let’s end all of this, Y/N.”

You sighed, though none of the weight of your world was released. Maybe ending this would be the fastest course. And being a member of the guilty party for allowing this to happen in the first place, you needed to be a ruler and fix it.

But you weren’t just the ruler of this realm. You knew that too well now.

You had a heart and a soul and they had been brutally crushed. 

You had fallen for him. Completely. Utterly helplessly. 

You loved that damn God of Spring, your heart still harbouringa grief you couldn’t fully fathom and a desperate wanting to just be close to him again. Maybe to wring his neck or maybe have him hold you like you so bitterly wanted him too. You wanted to feel the warmth of him on your skin, on your lips, in your soul again. Gods, you wanted to rip him apart and throw him in Tartarus or love him in every gentle, hungry way you could for the rest of eternity.

So when you saw him, what would you do? Would it be The Goddess of the Underworld condemning him? Or Y/N, embracing and forgiving him?

“Just… I guess give me a day,” you said, turning around to leave before this got even more out of hand, keeping the tears you promised yourself not to cry after that night from falling. “Bring him over tomorrow at dusk. I’ll let him back in.”


	9. The Conflict

The space was wide open. Its high ceilings towering up above you, the expanse of window stretching across the room to show off a wall of deep green and blue trees outside. There were two low black leather couches in the middle of the space, one across from the other with a large black glass top coffee between them. The grey and monotone space was interrupted by only you, alone and doing your best to hold yourself together.

You were leaned back on one of those couches, holding your body in what was supposed to look like a somewhat natural position: legs together, arms in your lap, looking straight out across to the empty couch opposite you.

But you looked like you weren’t breathing, a statue chiseled out of unyielding stone. Like you hadn’t moved before in your existence, looking anything but natural and easy.

But how were you supposed to feel right now?

Furious? Tired? Sure, on both accounts.

In love? Happy at the prospect of him coming back? Also true.

It was getting easier and easier to ignore and separate the Bucky you had known and the Winter Soldier that took him over. The more you were able to remove one from the other, the more you could be angry at what happened, but not exactly be angry with Bucky himself. That anger had decidedly grown into a deep longing that shook your bones at night and crippled your soul into a holding pattern of grief and conflict.

Grief because you wanted him back with you again…

You could have that smile back; _his_ smile. Crooked and genuine, it always started in his ocean blue eyes and eased through his whole body, relaxing him and subsequently you too. You could have back that edge of challenging, cocky confidence that you had seen flashes of in him. It suited him, emitted with that deep base hum you felt. It was that sound, that lullaby that sounded of satisfaction and the feeling of home.

You couldn’t make sense of that feeling, that sound and sense of home from him. But you felt it. Time and time again when you were together. 

What you could make sense of was the scent of him. Of cedar, deep and earthy and like the pines you had walked through together. Jasmine, intense and beautiful and delicate, just like him in many ways. The spring rain, like unending storms and resilience and gentle renewal. It was like that of his spirit, that dewiness shining out of his eyes and soul when you looked to him.

… But conflict because, if you so chose, you could actually _do_ something about it.

You didn’t have to merely imagine it. You could command him back and have him kneeling at your feet if you so demanded, with the backing of the entire Underworld too. After the destruction no one would dare question or fight it, not even Thor himself you supposed.

But though it might look as though you summoned him to punish him for the crimes against you, it would be purely to have him near. And look what happened last time he got close to you. He’d cloud your judgment all over again. You could bank on that.

So, unfortunately, the conflict still remained, just as cutting as the grief.

And now here you sat, twisted and stoic, as though afraid to move, lest to fall into one decision there was no return from.

The front door to your home was wide open today, only one visitor coming to call. The dusk had begun to settle in the living realm, purple and oranges and pinks mixing with the navy and black of the evening. Here the grey was only slightly tinted with those vibrant hues. The house was subtly tinged with those colours as he walked through, bringing a fresh breeze with him, flooding the hallways.

A floral note in the air was your first clue, a moment later the feel of another presence close by. One of life and livelihood so unlike what you felt day to day from anyone else around you. You heard the footsteps, soft and slow, giving fair warning that he was approaching.

When the presence stood on the threshold of the living room, hesitating to enter without permission, you turned to face them.

Maybe he still smelled like renewal and felt like calm, soft life, he looked nothing like either.

A grey drawn palour, sunken eyes, and weariness clung to him. It gripped him so clear his large frame seemed somehow smaller, the God of Spring shrinking back and braced, perhaps at being here or perhaps at seeing you again.

When his eyes connected with yours, you saw his face scrunch up just slightly, pained but refusing to look away. He looked miserable. Worst of all, he looked contented with that misery, accepting it.

“Sit,” you said, surprised your voice didn’t crack and split open with the torment you were feeling. It sounded professional, if not a little strained and stony. You had had enough practice with that because of your work, thank the gods.

His movements were measured and slow as though to show you he was in control of himself this time, not moving closer to your side of the room than strictly necessary. Sitting, you could see through your stony expression him swallow, the sound audible and his body unmoving, save his chest with shallows breaths.

“Y/N…”

You held your jaw so tight you thought it would it would snap. That one, deep and velvety word- your name on his lips- heartbroken and miserable pulled at the heartstrings you hadn’t been sure still remained.

“I’m so sorry,” he started, bring up those blue eyes to meet yours. He would only see the mask you had up, designed protecting yourself. The one of a ruler, not a lover. “I didn’t know what I was doing, I…”

He sighed, short and upset, shaking his head before the brunette leaned forward as far as he dared, speaking low and honest to you.

“I would… I would _never_ have wanted to hurt you,” he said, hushed. “Never, Y/N. Not you, not your kingdom… and I did both. And I know I can’t make it up to you–”

“No,” came your words, sharp and as hard as any stone. “You can’t, Bucky.”

You paused, trying not to let that floral scent ease into your bones. It had a sickly edge to it, as though the grey and wither look in Bucky was seeping into it.

“So I need to you tell me why you did it,” you continued. “Then get out of my house and realm, permanently.”

A piece of your soul contracted and shook, while your heart lurched at the words you spoke.

You railed against kicking him out, against not seeing him again. Parts of you needed more of him, and needed him to know it too. Those pieces of you tried to break down the steely, unattached look on your face and in your posture, but couldn’t. The compromise you made within you was to let those emotions run wild inside you, hoping they’d run their course and just let you be in misery.

You just had to get through this. You could do that. You could keep your emotions down, whatever they were, and outwardly be the ruler you needed to be.

“I don’t know,” he whispered wretchedly, but something else shown in his eyes too. Pleading. “And Y/N, I… I need your help.”

“What? Why?” you asked harshly. “So you can destroy _more_ of my life and job?!”

“No, I didn’t,” he said quickly rising up in his seat. The action made you narrow your eyes at him in a warning to stay down. He complied. “I wasn’t me, Y/N. That wasn’t me, not really, and I need you to know that. I _need_ you to understand that.”

A need of your own came up so suddenly you were bowled over in a split second.

_I love you_.

Visibly, you flinched. You tried to breathe through that thought which felt like an attack and almost completely broke through your facade. Half floored, half trying to hold yourself together you internally panicked for a moment, hoping for the love of all the gods you hadn’t said that out loud.

You should have. You should have said those words to him when you realized you felt it. Maybe it would have changed something. What it could’ve changed, you didn’t know. Maybe the person who did this to him- to both of you- wouldn’t’ve dared. Would not have had the balls to screw with the person you proclaimed to love.

You were white-knuckling the couch, nails digging and squeaking into the leather. Dizzily you tried to focus back on what Bucky was saying.

He noticed, eyes scanning you, but didn’t question the reaction.

“I may have let Steve and them think I remembered more with you,” he continued. “Which isn’t exactly untrue, I just… I’m myself around you. Clear. Able to process what happened easier, I guess. I don’t know if I’ll remember more with you, but I have questions too. That’s part of why I’m here. Questions only you can answer.”

“So you’re using me to get the information you need,” you said, trying to open up your jaw to speak clearly but it wasn’t completely a success. You could feel your chest rise and fall, the panic and desperation of those three little words still shaking you.

The cracks in your exterior were showing, your resolve to remain the queen of this land strong but not strong enough against the storm of emotions you felt inside you.

“No,” he said firmly, imploring. “I wanted to come today to apologize, if _nothing_ else. To try and make some kind of penance for what happened… I know, you said there’s nothing to be done…”

He ran his hands through his hair, struggling with the words. He couldn’t make amends or do something to fix this, he knew. Bucky rested his elbows on his knees, looking down and dejected, but somehow persistent all the same.

“Please, I don’t know if all this was against you or if only to raise certain people from your realm,” he said. “But Y/N, I need to figure this out. I need to know who I broke out. Please tell me.”

“A lot of fucking people, Bucky,” you snapped. “And _I_ don’t even fully know who.”

He nodded, staying calm and reasonable though you were starting to let anger breaking through.

Anger was easy. Anger wasn’t weak or dangerous for you or your realm. Whereas declaring _love_ for the person who ruined everything was certainly a risky, reckless move. One you were trying not to give in to.

“I need to solve this,” Bucky said slowly. That tinge of desperation was back in his eyes. You knew it ran deeper than what he was showing you. You could see the pain and desolation thread through him, holding him together and breaking him apart. “I need to heal. I need to know that I can’t _hurt_ you like this again.”

_Bucky, I love you_.

You recoiled, this time a sudden constricting across your chest and arms. It ripped your hands off from gripping the couch. You snapped them back to your lap, clasping them together as though the reaction was purposeful.

Desperately, you willed yourself not to think such things. Not to feel such things, at least just while he was here.

You could wallow and drown in the pain once he was gone. You could scream the words or sob them in your empty house. Just not yet. Not while he was here.

Again he noticed. He reached out and put a hand on the coffee table, the closest thing he could to hold your hand.

“Please, Y/N, I’m trapped inside my own head. I can’t trust myself or anyone else but you until I find out who’s doing this to me. Let me be free of this. Help me and let us _both_ be free of this.”

Free? You couldn’t be free from this. Not ever. Not now that his soul had touched yours and he had his name imprinted eternally on your heart. It hadn’t mattered that it was a betrayal after only so little time of knowing him. Your heart had committed to loving him the moment you first saw him. There was no freedom from it now.

You couldn’t so much as tame your emotions now, tame your thoughts around him anymore. That declaration of love caught in your throat.

You imagined closing the distance between you. What it would feel like to have your knees on either side of his hips, pressing your chest to his as your arms cradle and bound his head and lips to yours. What it would be like to be filled with warmth again, with not a hollow hunger for him but one he matched with his own wanting, to feel his longing and demand for more of you. You’d give in. You’d give him everything.

You imagined in that embrace to have a jungle grow around you, drowning in vines and flowers as they covered you, overtaking your bodies and the room and the house and the Underworld itself. You would get lost him and he would get lost in you and that would be it.

No threats. No realm. Just the two of you.

But no.

Someone had taken that. Someone had made a claim on Bucky too.

Not on his heart but on his soul. They tried to take it and twist it, torture it into something so unlike the man sitting across from you. They had wanted Bucky for themselves, to make him into a tool for them to use to destroy. And it would destroy the god himself in the process. You could already see the broken pieces in him, rattling around and cutting into him, breaking him down and breaking your heart.

You had felt so betrayed and so hurt, you had thrown yourself into fixing this disaster. You hadn’t given yourself permission to think about how this would have hurt _him_. How there truly was someone out there using and torturing and damaging him.

And the anger that wound up in you at that wasn’t one used to hide the pain underneath. It wasn’t to show you weren’t weak or weren’t in love.

The fury that realization ignited in you instantly brought a chill to the room. It bubbled up and burned in raging, icy waves, crashing against every other emotion in you, gripping every thought and feeling and reservation you had.

That bitter wrath cut through your stony mask in a flash.

Bucky sat back, his breath visible in the air now, watching as your brows connected and eyes shone in ice-cold furor.

You loved him, deeply and completely and recklessly. And someone was trying to hurt him, to take him away from you, weren’t they? Trying to control him. To change him. To cut out your name carved onto his heart.

Whoever they were, they were out there, outside your realm. Laying in wait to turn him into the Winter Soldier again. To take him from you.

They couldn’t touch Bucky here, not under the protection of you in your house.

_You would not let them_.

When you spoke, it was your voice but it came with a rumble, as though the air around you couldn’t handle the animosity you felt for this devil in the darkness, haunting Bucky. Your voice was felt through the concrete floors and walls, rattling the paintings and bottles of fine liquor on the bar.

“Fine,” you agreed, intensity rolling off you in waves. “I will help you. We will solve who is doing this to you. But I am _not_ letting you out of my sight.”

You paused, waiting for him to cower as the room grew darker and colder, your voice a deadly sound to hear. Bucky didn’t though. He sat up straight, eyebrows high and breathed in a deep breath as though in relief.

“You are to stay here from now on. No going back to Thor’s realm, no leaving these walls. I own you, I control you and I’ll protect you, understand?”

Bucky nodded, leaning back. It was as though in that action he had shed some of those threads of desperation, a hope at the promise of peace in him now. He saw your offer as one of help; you knew it to be one of protection of him and your own heart.

Because someone was essentially holding a knife to the throat of the person whom you loved. And you did love him, deeper and stronger and clearer than anything else you could possibly ever feel.

And you may hate it, you may not be able to navigate what it was to feel this way exactly just yet, but you realized you would tear apart the world to protect Bucky. Even if it was your own.

So your decision was made and there was no turning back now.

You stood and walked out of the room, your steps quick and hard on the floor, frost appearing in your wake. When you got to the front door you pushed it open with a slam, the thing hitting the stone exterior walls. 

Gravel crunched loudly as you strode down the long driveway and reached the gate, three figures leaning against Natasha’s grey car.

The three gods who brought Bucky here were waiting, talking in low voices to themselves in the light of the headlights until you appeared. Steve, clad in blue, Natasha in black, and Sam in red.

“The Underworld is closed,” you said at them, stony expression only thinly veiling your still burning fury. “And Bucky’s staying inside of it, so you can leave now.”

Three surprised faces pulled as you turned around, leaving to head back to the house without so much as a further explanation.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Steve asked stepping forward to the gate. “Y/N, where’s Bucky?”

You stopped and looked back, their faces less surprised and now flitting between concern, anger, and confusion, both at your words and the emotions you were not fully keeping under wraps.

“I said he’s staying with me,” you said, low and final. The cold that filled the air around you seeped across the border, the chill running through your friends on the other side, their breath visible now.

Steve’s face dropped. It was probably in that moment he realized he had sent his friend, the one who had destroyed the Underworld, back into the clutches of the very person who had the authority to punish and imprison him as they saw fit.

“Y/N,” he said, voice serious and hard. “What are you going to do with him?”

You stepped closer to the trio, fury in your eyes.

“ _Protect_ him,” you seethed. “I’m going to do what _you_ can’t. Isn’t this what you wanted? What you asked of me? Well, consider your wish granted, Steve.”

“He doesn’t need protection from us, Y/N,” Natasha said, trying to inject some reason. “Let us in or let him out.”

“They only thing I know is that he’s safe with me, and me alone,” you said. “He’s under threat and I _don’t_ suffer threats.”

“Y/N–” Steve started before you cut him off.

“Take a second look at who you’re talking too, Steve, then reconsider what you’re about to say,” you barked. “I have _absolute_ authority here so save your breath.”

At that you turned back around, leaving the trio behind.

“Take it up with Thor if you want,” you said, walking back to your house and to Bucky. “But as I told you, the Underworld is closed to outsiders. Now leave.”

* * *

 

You showed Bucky to the same room as he had stayed in before, both of you staying as far apart from each other as possible, walking together down the hall.

You hadn’t told him about turning Steve, Natasha, and Sam away, and he hadn’t asked. If he had, you wouldn’t have answered.

You wouldn’t have told him you lashed out at them because of what this manipulator was doing to Bucky. What that same manipulator could be doing to them. But your back was up, and when it came to war and protection, you were a force to be reckoned with, and you did not have to explain yourself to anyone.

You stopped a few feet away from his door, arms crossed and waiting for him to enter. The hallway was dark, the only subtle light coming from the glow of inside his room as he turned the knob. Bucky hesitated in that glow. It was nothing like his own though. His glow didn’t just touch your skin but reached deep into your soul too. It was white and soft and brilliant. Worthy of protecting at all costs. 

Bucky waited a moment, standing there before looking over to you.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

You watched those gentle and genuine eyes looking at you, as mesmerizing as you remembered. They exuded a calm and peace, your safety and safe haven able to ease a sense of security in him again.

Maybe your response before had been sharp and extreme, yet he was still thanking you for it.

You could have said you loved him. Or snapped in anger at the past pain he had caused. Or changed your mind completely and told him to get out instead.

But you simply nodded at him, focusing on his words that were both sweet and sad, just like him.

“Goodnight, Bucky.”


	10. Deeply, Completely, Recklessly

“I’m not going to electrify you if you touch me, Y/N,” Bucky teased smoothly with one eyebrow subtly quirked. “Thor is the god of that, if you’ve forgotten.”

Bucky was trying to lighten your increasingly agitated mood. One that had been brewing like a storm throughout the day with him. He was sitting slouched back in his seat surrounded by files and paper on the desk and floor, looking as though he had always been there.

It had in fact been the better part of the week that Bucky was living with you. And you could confidently say it had not been the easiest week of your life.

The first couple days were more awkward and silent than you ever wanted to live through again. The next few were better, both of you relaxing and as a silent arrangement of a wide berth and pleasant, non-consequential chatter or pure business talk was struck.

Now things had been almost comfortable believe it or not, the pair of you working together like a well-oiled machine. You two had been reviewing files and searching for some common element in this mess, with your assistants trudging to your house to drop off more every day by the carload.

Even with that, the secret of Bucky’s presence here was held, no-one allowed to enter your home or even step foot on your property without permission. Bucky had stayed inside and well hidden when any files were being dropped off and picked up, your assistants none the wiser.

In some ways, slipping into a routine of reviewing the mess of these case files and talking to someone you got along with was somehow torture for you. You would think it would be freeing, maybe even pleasant, to be able to talk shop with someone as dedicated as you to get this mystery solved.

But nope, it was pure torture for you. And it showed.

“You have ink all over your hands,” you muttered, making up an excuse for why you practically dropped the glass of whiskey you were handing him when his fingers brushed up against yours.

It was a simple touch, just the briefest of contact between his warm, strong hand and your cool one. But to you it _did_ actually feel like an electric shock, a jolt of longing that burst through you.

“And you don’t need the chill of death on you,” you said, moving back to your end of the desk and opening up a case file, keeping up that unspoken agreement of distance. “You’ve been here days now, I’m sure you’re constantly cold at this point.”

Bucky leaned forward with elbows on the table and stared at you.

“Friendly reminder that I’m not a flower myself, Y/N,” he said between pressed lips, looking rather unimpressed. “You still think one touch from you will make me wither and die?”

“You’ve already said that to me before Bucky,” you said, avoiding the question and avoiding whether he brought up that memory for a reason. You had been trying your desperate and torture best not to think of the romantic moments that had happened between you. “And you know the answer.”

“Your answer at the time was to kiss me,” he said cheekily, sitting back and looking up to you over a file, blue eyes shining.

_For the love of the gods he had to stop that._

“Yeah, well go ahead and hold your breath on that one, Bucky,” you muttered, turning your attention to the file in hand.

The heat on your cheeks was almost unbearable as he got back to work, filtering through some of the found and sorted souls that had escaped. You tried to bury your head in the papers and documents, but again, your damn emotions were splitting you open internally and on somewhat full display externally.

For days you had been slipping, trying so hard not to let the love you had for him escape your heart and soul. Why wasn’t it enough for you just to be able to admit it to yourself? Why was an overwhelming part of you so hell-bent on letting Bucky know?

It was in your eyes when he spoke gently and kindly to you. It was in your voice when spoke to him. It was in the way you lingered at his bedroom door when you said goodnight. It was in the flush of your skin when he brought up those brief, happy moments you shared. It was in _everything_ , all the time. Love was covering you and constricting you and dripping from your every move.

And it was making you both crazy and crazed.

“Hey, can you give me the file for number 54-839?” Bucky asked, brows furrowed at the file in hand.

You frowned, thankful for the momentary distraction, and searched through your stacks of manila folders for one labeled with that number. It took a moment, but you got it. When you brought it over to him you cleared some space and laid it out on the table beside his current file. Bucky stood and leaned over the desk, eyes glued to the precise typed words on the dossiers.

“The name Rumlow has come up, and it’s come up a lot,” Bucky said, his finger weaving down the page until it rested on the name in question, then pointed it out again in the other file. “Does that raise any alarms to you?”

“Well,” you said, leaning closer to Bucky as you went into work-mode, scanning the document. “Yes and no. He’s a lesser god actually, but has worked with some heavy hitters.”

“I don’t know the name but that doesn’t mean much,” Bucky said, turning your way. “No vendetta against you?”

“Hmm, can’t say for sure,” You stood straight again, cross your arms and searched your memory of anything related to the god. “I’d like to say I’m not exactly a terrible or malicious person- not enough for this level of destruction anyway- but I _am_ a high goddess who rules the queendom of the dead.”

You sighed silently, mulling over this possibility.

“If someone is in the Underworld that he doesn’t want to be here, that may be reason enough, I suppose. But we’ll need a lot more information.”

You knew the god he ran with now, and you didn’t like the idea of it at all. Not what it could mean. But you needed more than just a couple case files with a vague connection to Rumlow. With so many cases missing and souls M.I.A. there were bound to be a ton of possible connections.

You pulled your phone out, dialing your assistant’s number blindly. After a brief chat and command to find everything related to one Rumlow in the cases, you hung up. It would take a number of man hours and a great deal of sorting, but your nymphs back at headquarters were on it, and hopefully would have something (if there was something, which you certainly weren’t sure of) by tomorrow morning.

“Well, that’s that,” you said, a tight smile on your lips, drawing back as noticed your closeness. Your body had been drawn to his, leaving only the smallest fraction of space between you. You remedied that as fast as you could. “And I think I’m going to call it for tonight anyways.”

It was only early in the evening but you couldn’t take it anymore. You couldn’t have him be so _close_ and be so _near_ and _not_ have him touch you. Have him whisper sweet words in your ear. Flash you that confident smile with kind eyes.

You walked away quickly, packing up the files you were going to send back to headquarters in the morning. Bucky walked promptly up to you, stopping short as you gave him a sideways glance.

“Well, why don’t we go to the garden or something,” he offered, making your brows pull together and burying yourself in files to pack up the box. “I saw a case or four of champagne you have. I’ll pour you some. I don’t think I should drink alone here.”

He shook the whiskey glass in his hand, the ice clinking lightly in the liquid.

“I don’t want to drink champagne with you, Bucky,” you said, quietly and controlled.

That icy burn rolled through you at that, dying to admit that all you wanted was to be with him. It pained you where you stood, cheeks heating up all over again.

“Whiskey then,” he offered, stepping closer. He was so close you could feel that emanating warmth from him. You took a deep breath out of exasperation but you inhaled that heady, intoxicating scent of him.

“No, Bucky,” you said, eyes flashing with anger as you stepped around the man.

“Y/N,” he called after you, but you were already down the hall. “Y/N, come back.”

You were heading towards your bedroom when you heard him a distance behind you.

“Y/N,” he said after you again, footsteps coming up fast. You made a quick decision and took a different corridor that led away from your room. It would _not_ have been a good idea to have him follow you in there.

“Gods, Bucky,” you snapped as the god behind you didn’t let up. You didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to deal with your emotions. You just wanted all of this gone, your pain-free, boring, bored life back. At least that’s what you told yourself. “We’re in the Underworld for gods sake. We don’t care if you drink alone. Have all the whiskey you want. This is a judgment-free house, I _promise_ you.”

He caught up to you as you were entering the garden, your feet somehow leading you there. You broke into the lush space in a huff, no less exasperated here. You agitation was clear as day, glaring to Bucky who entered behind you, slowing down as he saw your face.

“What’s wrong, Y/N/?” he asked. It was a caring tone, something that made you fume even more.

“Bucky, I’m not looking for a drinking buddy, that’s not why you’re here,” you said, tone further illustrating the anger you directed his way.

You turned walking down the black path through the foliage and towering trees, trying to leave him behind. You didn’t exactly want to be here, but you also didn’t want to walk passed Bucky and get that close to him.

You had been _so near_ to him for days and it was the worst and most heavenly kind of torture. To have the person you desire so blissfully close, but not actually _really_ have them? Your emotions were frayed, your stability shot, and you could barely sleep at night with visions of him keeping you up and dreams of him giving you no reprieve.

You knew this would be a lot to handle, but this was too much. This wasn’t something you were good at, not something you had experience in. Sure, you could command a room, make others kneel before you, decisively and unabashedly make the hard and necessary decisions one in your position had to make. You could suit up in your battle-tested armour and lead a legion in the depths of Tartarus without showing a hint of fear, or sit behind a desk and shrewdly review the quarterly numbers with the gods who worked for you.

But love? Love was impossible. Love was hard and illogical and painful and clashed completely with who you thought you were. So you fought it. And you were so weary of fighting it, of fighting what you wanted. And frankly, it put you in a foul, pissed-off kind of mood.

The shadow of the pines and trees in the dwindling light couldn’t hide your anger or exhaustion now. But in that cloud of feeling blinding you, you went down a wrong turn, seeing the end of this path near a garden wall. You were in a tiny circular clearing now, ivy growing up the wall and trees, mingling with deep violet flowers that wove between the leaves.

Bucky entered with you, staying back from you as you fidgeted and fumed for reasons you hadn’t and couldn’t tell him. He understood your silence and distance at the beginning, but for sudden upset anger he probably couldn’t understand.

“Talk to me, Y/N,” he said.

The words were quiet and gentle, but they were planted firmly. The look in his welcoming eyes was one of persistence. Of stubbornness. Of caring. No one looked at you like that. It made everything well up inside you yet again.

You turned to the side, shaking your head more so at yourself for your continued lack of control. For trying so hard to keep emotions down that just wanted to be free. Gods, you just _hated_ this.

“Y/N,” he said again, and you knew it would say this a hundred times until you gave in. Of course you couldn’t have fallen for some push-over who didn’t care for you, could you have. Nope, it had to be caring, thoughtful, maddening _him_. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Talk to me.”

Your eyes stayed focused ahead of you, unable or unwilling to look directly at him, though you saw him in your peripherals, giving you space. Space to feel or yell or lash out. Space to be real and raw and yourself.

“Upset,” you seethed through closed teeth, barely a whisper. When you spoke again you were looking at him, voice louder. “I’m angry, Bucky.”

“Okay,” he said gently. “Tell me why.”

As if there weren’t a thousand reasons! As if any of this were simple.

“Because someone has control over you!” you shouted at him, exploding with steam like a kettle that had boiled over. “Because someone hurt you. Could still hurt you. Because you destroyed my realm. Because you turned my work life into chaos! Because you released who knows _what_ back into the world for reasons still unclear. Which is my job not to let that happen, thus also probably ruining my reputation to _be_ in charge.”

You were pacing now, heels of your palms digging into your eyes before shaking out your head and hands, too angry to be still. When you looked to him your eyes were bloodshot and watery, anger now beginning to turn into something else now.

“Because I trusted you, and you _attacked_ me,” you continued, unable to stop even though your jaw was held tight against the emotions hitting you. You should just shut up, just try and keep this all inside. “Because you made me bleed and _hurt_. Because you made me hurt _you_.”

You brushed away a tear as it escaped from rolling down your cheek, emotions burning and fueling an avalanche of words you couldn’t stop. Ones that had been crushing you for days.

“Because being without you killed me and I had to pretend that it didn’t,” That last word came out to your horror more like a sob, the anger coming back a bit more out of embarrassment now. “Because I couldn’t forget your face or your hands on me or you kissing me. Because I _love_ you Bucky. Because I love you more than anyone or anything.”

You gasped in air as you had seemingly forgotten to breathe, one hand clutching your heart. In a mad dash you stepped forward, pointing furiously at him before he could so much as react to your words.

“And so help me if you say a single word right now or tell me how you feel Bucky, or I’ll throw you somewhere dark and painful, I _swear to the gods_!”

You panted, air coming in a rush into and out of your lungs, eyes glued to his. When he didn’t verbally respond to your outburst, just sucked in his upper lip and nodded noncommittally, you scowled at him, pacing yet again this time because of a shock of anxiety in your system.

But just as you asked, all he did was stand there, watching you with an unreadable expression on his face. You meanwhile were reeling with more dazed emotions than you had when you entered this place.

Oh gods, why had you said any of that?!

Well, you could actually guess at the answer to that one. Keeping this all inside was getting to be too much. You were feeling far too much and needed it out in the open, needed that weight off your chest. And you felt that it was gone, but it was replaced by a different weight.

Fear.

You were more vulnerable than you could remember purposefully ever being, and it was terrifying.

You kept walking, body moving farther away and practically hitting the stone wall. You were only several feet from him but you wanted to be either right beside him or a realm away. You just couldn’t decide which, not until he answered you in some way.

You looked his way, with a pained face and bloodshot eyes, watching him as he watched you. You held your elbows, trying to see if you could figure out what his response would be without the trauma of him having to voice it.

He was still in that same spot, body leaned forward a bit and chest moving faster than it had before. His face gave little away, but his eyes were a dancing, shining blue. They flitted between your eyes where you stood. But he made no sound.

“I’m just…” you started, pressed by the silence to speak. Even if it was your doing and even if you sounded miserable. “I’m just deeply, completely, recklessly in love with you, Bucky.”

He swallowed hard, nodded again with his jaw tight. You saw and could feel a force in just under his skin, held at bay but showing fiercely in those eyes. It was a tense, silent moment. The settling night and rustling of leaves were lost on you as you both stood before each other, too many emotions overtaking you.

After a long pause and his composure regained, he raised an eyebrow as though in permission to speak. You sighed, nodding and holding yourself tighter. As you briefly avoided his gaze, you didn’t notice him take a slow step closer.

“And that makes you angry?” he asked quietly, voice somewhat neutral.

You looked back to him, a bit surprised at the not wholly unwelcome question. Anything to put off the inevitable rejection looming.

“Why wouldn’t it?” you said, gesturing to nothing, body moving back and forth as he walked closer to you.

“You don’t want to feel this way about me?” he asked, and again, the surprise of the question made your eyes snap back to his.

You weren’t sure if you had heard it in his voice or saw it in his eyes, but you thought you sensed a sadness in that question.

“It’s not you,” you said, trying to put into words something you didn’t understand. You had never gone through this in this way before, feeling love this powerful. Caught up in yourself, Bucky kept moving closer. “It’s me, I guess? It’s fighting these wretched feelings and trying to keep composed like I should be. It’s feeling this way without any logical or reasonable excuse too. I mean, how much time have we actually spent together, _really_?”

When you looked back up, you stopped moving and fidgeting as suddenly Bucky was a mere foot away from you. It stopped the breath in your lungs and made that weight on your chest feel all the more heavy.

There was a long pause where no-one spoke or moved.

Eventually Bucky slowly took that last step closer to you. You looked down to his chest as you saw his head tilt, his eyes too intense with emotions you didn’t want to decipher. You felt his fingertips reach out and trace along your jawline, the lightest warm caress on your cool skin.

“Please don’t,” you whispered. It was barely heard even to your ears, sounding wounded.

The movement stopped and was pulled back, hovering just over your skin but not pulled completely away.

“Tell me why,” came that gentle prompting again.

Your expression crumpled, hurt lining your face and penetrating into your eyes.

“I won’t be able to bear it if you leave again,” you said, voice hushed and cracked. Traitorous tears filled your eyes. “I promise you I won’t. I just couldn’t, not again.”

Lightly his fingers reached back down to touch your skin, the warmth about making you whimper where you stood. Gods, you had missed it. You never understood how you could miss something you only had so fleetingly.

You felt him shift, moving to place his hand on your hip, then draw it up around your back. It held on to your waist, pressing you gently into him. You felt his breath cascade down your cheek as he leaned down, mouth hovering just above your skin.

“Wait,” you tried to protest, the floral scent as dizzying as you remembered and his heat just as all-consuming. It flooded you and filled you, and you didn’t want to it stop- not ever- but to have it, then have it taken away again would end you.

You remembered back to those first wretched days after the Winter Soldier ruined things. How you felt as though you were on the edge of a death you could never step into, only to wake up and have the torture begin all over again. It was loneliness and bitterness and emptiness, and it destroyed you.

You formed fists, held to his chest as that desperate feeling of his loss hurt you all over again.

“You may not let me tell you how _I_ feel, but I will tell you this, Y/N,” he said, the words whispered into your skin and soul like a vow and a prayer. “No god in heaven, hell, or of the world will take me away from you. Not ever again.”

He slipped his fingers under your chin, raising your head up so his lips were almost touching yours, the length of his chestnut hair shielding you from anything but him in that moment. You saw in his eyes those oceans and galaxies you longed for. Just as persistent, stubborn, and as steadfast as the changing of the seasons, you saw in those eyes of his the promise he made.

With it was the intensity of an unmistakable, all-consuming love for you, shining as deeply, completely, and recklessly as you felt it for him.

“You and I,” he whispered, reaching down to connect his lips to yours. “It’s going to be you and I. Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed around my plan and included fluff here because I couldn't help myself. Hope you enjoyed!


	11. The Storm on the Horizon

The call came well into the night, the ringing on your phone waking you hours after you had gone to bed and hours before you were to wake up.

You were sitting the edge of your bed, duvet thrown back and your feet touching the cold floor, elbow on your knee and head in your hand. It was deathly quiet besides the timid voice of your assistant on the other end.

“I didn’t mean to wake you--”

“It’s alright,” said you low, voice hoarse and laced with sleep. “You wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. What’s wrong?”

In the stillness of the room you listened, phone pressed to your ear and expression turning as dark as shadows that had settled into your room at this late hour.

Because it was important, and something was certainly wrong.

* * *

 

The front door latched closed slowly, you ran your hand across your face as you looked down at the thick binder your assistant had just dropped off. You had long left behind the want or desire for sleep, despite the near black sky outside. Only a ghostly blue of the outside lights lining the house came through the windows, just enough to see by.

Softly you padded barefoot down the hall, binder held tight and the absent idea of coffee mingled with the more serious thoughts your mind was murky with. And though you tried to remain quiet, you were met with one sleepy house guest on your way to your office.

Bucky was wearing sweat pants loose in his hips and was in the middle of both pulling on a black shirt and yawning.

“Wha’s goin’ on?” he mumbled through the yawn, sleep still clinging to him. His eyelids were heavy and hair mussed, looking the cutest kind of disheveled. It was enough to momentarily lighten the pit in your stomach.

“It’s alright, go back to sleep,” you said quietly, tone calm and smooth. “Just Underworld stuff. The dead don’t sleep as much as people make them out too.”

Bucky yawned like some big cat still half asleep, waiting a moment and swaying a bit on his feet before you gave him a small smile of encouragement. That seemed to be enough for him who nodded back before shuffling slowly back into his room in his dreamy haze.

When you got to your office you carefully and quietly closed the door, latching and locking it. Once you were alone, you let a frown crease your mouth and eyebrows pull together. Your expression only got darker as you opened the file saw the details sprawled out in front of you, connecting dots you didn’t know were there.

The case files Bucky connected yesterday were for a low-level analyst and a mid-level operation specialist. They were small cogs in organization that should have no real connection to Rumlow at all, yet there he was, mentioned as supervisor to both for no clear reason at all.

Both souls were currently considered M.I.A. now.

Not overly concerning in and of itself (beyond the obvious of the dead walking outside of the Underworld, of course).

What _was_ incredibly concerning were the numerous others connected to them and that little organization.

They contained some names from Tartarus, including what could only be described as an elite hit team of exiled gods banished there some time ago. From what you could gather from the incomplete and patchy case files, destroyed in the Winter Soldier’s rampage, they had apparently gone “rouge” and acted out against orders from their superiors like Rumlow. Subsequently, they were thrown deep into the prison.

You wracked your memory, trying to bring up the details of this group. After billions of souls it was no easy feat but you _did_ recall a few things and a gut feeling that joined the pit in your stomach.

There had always been a missing link to these cases you remembered. No-one from this crew of so-called rogues was much of a thinker as it were, just pure muscle and power and dark deeds. Yet they had come together, had a structured cleared hierarchy, were ruthless in mission execution, and were so precise and they had almost succeeded in taking down the top tier of gods on one bitter day.

So you had thought there was someone missing. A shadowed figure at the top, commanding and manipulating from behind the scenes, always just out of sight and elusive. It certainly fit the bill for who you were looking for now. And at the time you knew this person would come to light, as death and judgment escapes no-one. As it goes, being from his realm, Thor was adamant he would keep his eye opened for such a person when you sat down to discuss this with him after the judgment of the hit team.

But more to the point and with more digging into some of the souls and creatures on this list, a lesser god like Rumlow didn’t have the chops or power to pull strings at this high a level. Not able to control, command, and manipulate enough to keep even you in the dark. This took some serious planning and forethought, neither of which screamed “Rumlow” to you, to be honest. He might be on the paperwork, listed as some kind of far-removed overseer to these individuals, but must have only been as a way to cover-up who was up on top. Another pawn in the manipulators game.

But you had informants on the outside and the intel reports sprawled out in front of you now were rather conclusive.

You knew now the god Rumlow did answer too. And you knew the kind of control he had.

Your eyes darkened to black pools as very slowly dawn began to coat the Underworld in a misty, pale blue haze.

_Damn it!_

* * *

“Who are they?” he asked, looking from the file in hand to you.

This morning he had found you quite early enough in your office, your coffee long finished and scotch now in place despite the dawn hour.

He had practically glowed as he leaned in the doorframe, watching you intently working. A lopsided smirk was a picture on contentment, even if you hadn’t seen that glint of soft, pure joy in his eyes. Somehow it made the blue in them glow brighter, positively dancing as he drank you in. It was the look of someone who felt at ease, felt whole, felt undeniably loved.

You had wondered when you first caught his what he dreamt about that put him in such a gentle, luminous spirit. Wondered if he had stayed up late into the night like you had, buzzing with joy and maybe a little uncertainty, thoughts flooded of him touching you, whispering honey sweet words to you, feeling that deep warmth into the foundation of your soul.

You wanted to smile just as he did, to throw this all away and be with him, staring contently at one another as though in a dream right now too. But he deserved to know the situation, and the reality of the didn’t stop just because you wanted it too.

“I have news,” you started, rubbing your face and throwing the file down gently on the desk with a smack. “Come, take a look at this.”

After a moment of review and interjected explanation, Bucky’s glow had settled into something a little more muted, his brows furrowed and jaw held a little more tightly.

“They’re dangerous, though not as important as who they work for,” you supplied, leaning back in your chair and bringing your feet up on the leather edge.

You understood the arrogance in that statement, as not much was a threat to you and these were some heavy hitters. But you wanted the god on top. That was the real threat to you.

“Rumlow,” Bucky said, voice sounding sure but face pulled in uncertainty.

“Partially, I’ll assume,” you shrugged. “Someone has to do the dirty work. But not wholly. And I can tell you, he’s not at the top of this.”

Your eyes turned to Bucky, casting a bit more of a serious though neutral look his way.

“I want to learn more about you and your time just after Steve found you,” you said sipping the amber liquid in your glass. Bucky sat down with one arm on the desk and the other on his hip, not leaning back as you were, ready to learn what this was about. “When you were brought back to the Tower, I mean. Must have been hard to readjust, to trust yourself.”

“It was,” he said slowly, not questioning why you asked this now and playing along. “But I had people there to help me. And it did help, somewhat.”

“Like Steve,” you added. “He was the one to look after you, right? In charge of keeping you safe and protecting you from lashing out as the Winter Soldier.”

“Well, yes and no,” Bucky said. “Steve’s my friend, but not exactly impartial. It was actually Pierce who was looking after me and what I did. He was reporting back to Thor, I guess.”

“Pierce,” you said, mouth forming a line thin. A bitterness coated your tongue at the name.

Bucky studied you a moment, realization hitting as he drew in a deep silent breath.

“Pierce.” The word sounded just as dark and bitter coming from him too, his eyes clouding darkly at the name.

You rose to your feet, walking closer and stood beside Bucky, him leaning back in his chair and looking up at you. You felt his hand wrap lightly to the back of your knee, holding you close to him. That clouded look in his eyes cleared just a little.

“Don’t go near him,” you said quietly. “I’ll have my-”

But a chime sounded over the intercom and your head quickly turned to the office door. The security panel just to the side of it was flashing a purple alert. Someone was at the gate.

You prayed to the gods it wasn’t Pierce, lest you kill him. You waited a moment, debating whether to ask Veronica to confirm or deny it, but if it was Pierce maybe it was best you simply end him and be done with this...

“Stay here,” you said to Bucky, trying to give him a reassuring smile.

* * *

 

Cerberus was already there, his large black frame not hidden in the shadows as per usual, but standing at the end of the driveway, looking the visitor straight on and ominously. He had been oddly absent from the house with Bucky there, obviously still hurt by the betrayal. Though if you could forgive Bucky, Cerberus could too, the stubborn, emotional thing.

You knew without looking at your guard dog as you walked passed him that there was murder in his eyes. It rolled off of him in waves, the cold grip of fear and need to run set in all who looked at him. It didn’t work on you, and from the look of the man in front of you, it wasn’t quite enough to send him running.

_Just wait until he’s on this side of the gate,_ you thought to yourself, wishing the barrier that separated your realm from the next was not so thick enough to mute the dread of Cerberus. _We’d tear you apart_.

“Good morning, Y/N,” Pierce said with a deep nod and pleasant smile, as though this was merely a friendly house call.

He was the picture of composure, as he always was. Measure speech and concerned eyes on a disinterested face. He wore a sharp navy three-piece suit with a blood red tie, the colour muting the reddish tinge of his hair. Of course he was a stand-up member of Thor’s realm, held in high regard and without so much as a (known) blemish on his record.

_Wait until I can dig a little deeper_ , you thought. _I’ll find out every nasty thing you’ve ever done and make you pay dearly for it. I always do._

You stood across from him looking quite different, clad in a long sleeve black shirt, dark jeans and black ankle boots, hair moving and flowing in the slight breeze that began to move through the Underworld. You had no need to put on a fake persona to hid the evil underneath like he did.

“Good morning, Pierce,” you responded back, crossing your arms. You felt the slight rumble of a deep growl from Cerberus beside you, feeling the bubbling hatred that was brewing under your skin. “I have to say, it isn’t completely a surprise your being here.”

“Ah well,” he said with a smile. “That’s to be expected I’m sure, what with the company you’ve been keeping lately.”

“Hmm,” you said noncommittally with a brief raise of your eyebrows.

The company in question was back at the house, just on the other side of the front door trying to listen in to this conversation with fist clenched and heart beating loud. His nerves weren’t for himself, but you, though you didn’t share the same concern. If anyone was at risk here, it was Pierce and Pierce alone.

When you did nothing but gaze at him dryly, the god continued on, hands in his pockets and movements as casual as his voice feigned to be.

“I came around today as I heard there’s something that doesn’t exactly belong to you,” he said, looking pointedly at you.

It was like that knowing look of a father trying to goad their child into admitting wrongdoing. To play the conversation like this was a bad decision, with your concealed anger bubbling up more intensely. This was the man who threw your whole realm into chaos and almost destroyed your relationship with Bucky and the god himself.

“And you care why exactly?” you asked, with a vague gesture of your hand.

“Ah, perhaps you didn’t know,” he said almost sympathetically. “I was placed in charge of the well-being of a certain wayward god, the God of Spring. He got into some terrible business- but not his fault, you know- and I took custodianship of him. See, it’s my job, as dictated by Thor, to help the lad and make sure he’s not a danger to himself or the rest of us gods. You understand.”

He gave you a smile, maybe expecting you to throw open the gates and throw Bucky into his clutches. Like that would ever happen.

Pierce was the God of Strength, Power, and Sovereign Rule, and challenges came few and far between for him. He was generally considered above reproach, a confidant and advisor to the gods in high places, and thought of as a steady and even-keel being.

_But I see through you now, don’t I?_

You turned your head to the side a moment, trying to hold back a smile. Not out of joy but amusement.

He might be strong and authoritarian, but he was not on your level. You found it almost twistedly laughable that he thought so.

“And perhaps you didn’t know,” you started. “But let me state it just so you’re aware of this situation, as _I_ dictate it.”

You took a pause, looking at the man who by feeling alone you now knew was the manipulator behind all of this. As you did the amusement you felt a moment before dissipated, and a righteous, indignant fury began building in its place. As your emotions began to intensify, the atmosphere started subtly changing. Just the slight darkening of the sky above you, the wind picking up, and distant rumbling from sources unknown.

You felt the familiar coolness take control over your skin, the colour blooming from its usual shade to one as though touched by ice.

“Bucky isn’t leaving,” you said, a mocking sympathetic quality to your voice, an exaggerated version of his own. “And you are not welcome here. So unless you feel powerful enough to take me on, I suggest you crawl back to all the other gods that believe your pathetically disguised lies. Hmm?”

With hands in his pockets and breath visible in front of him with the steadily dropping temperature, Pierce leaned back on his heels and his smile formed a thin, not-so-carefree line.

“Now Y/N,” he said, trying to seem reasonable. “I sure you understand th--”

“Whatever you’re going to explain to me, don’t,” you said, voice dropping the pretense and fury filling its place.

The dark turn of your words was punctuated by the navy storm rolling behind you, distantly black lightning cracked through the skies and the deep bass rolls of thunder sounded like the crumbling of mountains and wailing of death.

Frost spread out from you, an icy deep blue sheet across the gravel. As it climbed the gate and trees surrounding your property the ice snapped and cracked as it encased everything in its deadly chill.

With the navy backdrop of the churning, crackling sky behind you and the dark ice ground before you, the pale glacial colour that covered your eyes stood out all the more. It was a display of pure, dark power and not an empty threat to those unfortunate enough to witness it. It carried with it the might of the Underworld and a fury in your chest you thought unparalleled.

When you spoke it was like that of a hiss and thunderous growl layered together, piercing through his ears and rumbling through the ground with equal, shaking force. It was an ancient, powerful voice that could split the world itself open.

“You think the God of Strength is strong enough to go up against me and win?”

You paused blinking slow and confident before your biting words sounded again, sharp and deep and eternal.

“Try it and we’ll how deeply you fail. Try taking Bucky from me and we’ll see how much pain can be inflicted on one body. Try to harm him or my realm again and we’ll see how much torture your soul can bare until the end of all days.”

Pierce watched you, face guarded and stance still.

“Now leave, you lesser god,” you said. “Before I cross this threshold and end you where you stand, treaty with Thor be damned.”

You didn’t wait for a response, not wanting or needing to hear that insipid voice of his again.

With a clench from your fists the towering stone wall around the gate began to shift. The black and grey glittering stone moved and connected like puzzle pieces, covering the black metal gate in a matter of seconds. It blocked out the sight of Pierce behind a solid wall and when the movement stopped your realm was filled with silence once more.

The storm behind and above you was dissipating into nothingness and the frost around you melt back into the ground, watering the trees. Cerberus gave a somewhat proud and satisfied sounding huff and began his rounds of protection with a bit more vigor.

You were still a buzzing with power too, skin cool and eyes that eerie colour. In the silence you wondered about waiting to calm down, to ease back into your usual form. But you knew Bucky would be watching and waiting, so your feet crunched the gravel up to the front steps and the front door.

Upon entering, Bucky was leaning against one of the double doors. When you caught sight of him you gave him a lopsided rueful smile, turning to close and lock the front door and trying to avoid his gaze for a moment.

But the second it was closed Bucky’s arms were around you, muscled arms locking you in place against the door as his lips crashed into yours. The firm assault was a surprise that stole the breath from your lungs and replaced a rueful smile with a genuine one, a chuckle deep in your chest at his bewildering need for you.

You pulled away as best you could, watching at the air billowing from Bucky’s nose that was now visible with the cold of you entering into his lungs. But his eyes behind that fog were bright and hungry and mesmerized by you.

“I’ve fought for people,” he whispered, arms not willing to let you and watching you in a quiet disbelief. “But I don’t have many that fight for me. Not like that.”

You looked down, swallowing. Gods you really didn’t want him to see all of that. See the terrifying, forceful side to you. You wanted to show him nothing but warmth, nothing but the love and affection he deserved to have. To show you could be more than the hard, cold person people perceived you to be. But here you were, looking like the commander of the Underworld you were.

… And he _liked_ it.

Blue and frost-bitten and looking like death, you had made the skies turn deadly and rumbling wails spring up from the ground. People ran from a creature like you, afraid and cowering, not wanting and desiring you for it.

But by the way he was looking at you, you swore he must have seen something completely different.

You silently sighed, closing your eyes and resting your cheek against his jaw, willing to give in to his unyielding hold, even if was still confounding that he wanted to do so. You relaxed however briefly and let yourself feel the blessing as it was.

“You did that for me?” he asked, still somehow disbelieving the lengths you’d go for him. You felt the slight shake of his head.

“Of course,” you murmured to him. “I didn’t dream up saying I love you last night, did I?”

You felt a wave of warmth hit you at that, followed by a flood of floral perfume dancing in the air, mixing with the icy, ozone smell of you. You could hear the soft melody of flowers blooming and opening all around you, and again, you relaxed and savoured the moment.

“I’m his charge, Y/N,” he whispered down to you, still keeping his promise to remain quiet on the subject of love. “And he’s a god of Thor’s realm, not yours.”

You felt his hands slip down your back before coming back up and tightening his hold on you even more.

“Just like I am,” he said lowly, words laced with a bit of sorrow as though he wanted to be a god of the Underworld with you. “We both know you’ll suffer consequences for threatening him, and for keeping me, but… you did it anyway.”

You turned your head into him more, letting the warmth of him ease you down to your core. Because consequences be damned; you loved him, you had him, and you weren’t letting him go.

“We’re in my realm and I’ll protect you,” you said simply, voice a calm and smooth sound now. “We don’t have proof of Pierce’s deceit yet but we’ll get it.”

You looked up to him, hand cupping his cheek and watching his eyes dance with that contentment of being deeply, unconditionally loved. And he was, so indescribably so.

“Like I said, I’m protecting you now Bucky.”

You weren’t sure when you leaned your head back down to the crook of his neck, pressing your lips into his skin if it was you that hummed with pleasure or him. You weren’t sure when he took your hand and threaded your fingers through his hair, his lips connecting gently just below your ear if it was him that melted into you, or you into him. You weren’t sure when his lips sealed with yours again, slow and heated, if anyone in existence had ever felt the way you felt with him. You weren’t sure when he wrapped you up and drank you in where he ended and where you began.

Either way, as your bodies tangled together in the grey early morning light, delicate flowers began to bloom as though from thin air all around you, filling the space and breaking through the front door to the estate outside.


	12. Always

You had maybe one minute of peace? Maybe two?

The encounter was only just over and your arms were still wrapped securely around your love, when your phone completely blew up. It woke you from the enraptured dream that Bucky held you in, surrounded and enveloped in the sweetest florals the world had to offer. A rainbow of colour coated the usual grey entranceway, a waterfall of blooms cascading from ceiling to floor. But as you looked up to Bucky, your mind yet again was clouded by that dream that was his grin, his shining eyes, his warm presence.

But the dream broke with the explosion of buzzing, binging, and vibrating all one after the other demanding immediate attention. Texts, calls, emails; notifications were constant as goddesses and gods, nymph and furies, demons and ghosts were hounding you at once.

You weren’t like Thor, happy one moment and outraged the next, with gales and lightning bolts strong enough to crack open heaven and earth a regular occurrence (though admittedly Jane seemed to help tame that aspect of his boisterous personality as of late). Bucky- or rather the protecting of him- seemed to have the opposite effect on you, causing a display throughout the Underworld that hadn’t happened in some time.

So once the storm had passed and temperature returned from the biting cold, what felt like every one of this realm did the next best thing to approaching you (should you not be as calm as the skies showed) and bombarded your phone.Questions about what the hell happened or what army was invading or if there was another break-out in Tartarus or if you had stubbed your toe or if Bucky had come back to destroy something else, and the list went on and on…

So long into the afternoon you were still on your phone, leisurely on the plush grass of the garden though your activities were hardly casual. Bucky was with you, practicing creating flowers native to your land, while you worked on the business of running the Underworld.

Not only had you been fielding questions on what had happened while trying to avoid certain details of it, but were also planning next steps to deal with Pierce. You explained your suspicions about Pierce being behind this to only your most trusted of goddesses and gods. Plans for recon and intel gathering followed, along with commands going out for information on the organization he was running and dossiers on all those suspected to be involved.

Information was flooding in and action plans set out with procedures and priorities detailed out. You could get far without revealing all of the truth but it wouldn’t last forever. You knew your maneuvering could only last so long but you had to bide time on both fronts. Pierce himself, though strong enough, could be handled but you couldn’t fight back the oncoming battle from Thor _and_ the Underworld at once if they found out about Bucky being here. At least not without a _considerable_ headache.

Soon enough, under the luscious blooms swaying with the afternoon breeze, constant updates started come in. And most concerning were the updates on the visual from the West Gate wall. It wasn’t long until Bucky noticed too.

“Are we talking rain, or a different kind of storm?” he asked, glancing over to you from where he sat. His legs were sprawled out in front of him, a small bundle of white Asphodel Flowers trying to unfurl their white little petals just in front of him.

Phone to your face you looked up momentarily, before turning your attention back to the little black device.

“It’s nothing,” you muttered convincingly, giving a dismissive wave of your hand. “Everything’s fine, I’m sure.”

“Stop avoiding the question,” he said, with an unimpressed quirk of his mouth. “I’m the God of Spring, Y/N. If there’s one thing I know, it’s when a storm’s coming.”

You sighed from your spot in the shade of a towering pine, giving up the pretense. You uncrossed your knees and moved your legs flat so you could see him more clearly, phone dropping to your side, though the buzzing didn’t stop.

“Then you can feel both mine and Thor’s, huh,” you said ruefully.

“Yes, on both accounts,” he replied with a nod, though he at least pretended not to be overly put-out by it. “I take it the view over the wall hasn’t been looking good?”

The sky on Thor’s horizon was not its usual picture of bright and clear skies, with singing birds and a blinding sun. It had become growingly clouded and rumbling through the day, with things getting a tick darker bit by bit (and immediately followed by the buzz of your phone to let you know).

It was a calling card for an impending confrontation. Pierce would have told Thor some wildly inaccurate version of the truth and Thor would be on his way soon. As the afternoon dwindled you could hear the clock ticking down until the God of Thunder and ruler of the living realm appeared at your front step.

“I honestly can’t say what’s he’s going to do,” you admitted, rubbing your face as though trying to push out the information you had been overloaded with since early this morning. “I’ve known him a long time and besides his boisterous personality stepping on my toes occasionally, I can say we haven’t been at odds much. I don’t know what he’ll do.”

Bucky shifted to face you leaning back with arm outstretched behind him. Almost as an automatic reaction, the grass there grew thick under his palms.

“So then what are you going to do?” he asked, head tilted.

You paused before you scrambled up on your hands and knees.

“Screw it,” you murmured at the same time, making Bucky pull a perplexed face before it eased into an almost smugly contented one as he saw what you were doing.

Crawling along the grass a couple feet you shuffled right to him, too tired at this point to be particularly pretentious about it. You ignore that crooked grin of his, clearly pleased with himself and you in this moment, and settled yourself against his side as Bucky held up his arm in welcome. Resting your head against his chest you held him close, breathing in his scent and being calmed by it.

“To answer the question, I’m going to keep you safe and with me,” you said, shrugging into him a little.

When Bucky spoke it was measured and soft; a reasonable tone and logical sound.

“And if you can’t?”

You huff, instantly put out by the insinuation, despite the perfectly fair question. He wanted to talk possibilities, while you only had one in mind. Call that the ruler in you, considering it was typically your way or no way once your mind was set.

You looked up at him, opening your mouth to snap back, but he cut you off with a shake of his head and more of those gentle words.

“I don’t for a _moment_ doubt your ability to protect me, Y/N,” he said, pulling you closer to provide a bit of comfort against the slight sting of his question. “But there are consequences. Looking at this, you took something so now you’ll have to pay something. Reasonably, I don’t know if I’m worth that. Not in comparison to your realm anyway.”

“Listen, I’ve been ruling and protecting the Underworld for a _lot_ years,” you said trying not to sound as dismissive as you felt. “I’m in fact the _goddess_ of it, as a matter of fact, so I’m not worried about that. All I’m worried about is keeping you _safe_ and _here_ , away from harm.

“Yes, at any cost it looks like,” he pointed out, one unimpressed eyebrow raised as he looked down at you.

“So what,” you mumbled into his chest, slinking your arms around him. “I love you and this is just how things are going to go.”

Bucky leaned down and kissed the top of your head, nuzzling into your hair.

“Yes ma’am,” he murmured, clearly sensing the end of that conversation.

You stayed bundled up by him, with one arm wrapped around you, one drawing slow fingertips up and down your arm, and his head resting lightly on yours.

At least for now you decided to take a break from work, putting your phone on silent. The embrace and calming touch of one God of Spring was too indulgent and affectionate to resist for the moment anyway.

While shirking work, you still could help but try and think through every possible way to legitimately keep Bucky here (ideally in this garden, in your arms…).

It was a big ask- to put it in a _grossly_ understated way- to ask your whole queendom to go up against the living realm all for one person, which may just be what this came down too. Well realistically you wouldn’t so much as _ask_ as you would threateningly command, but still. And the fact was at the end of this and even if you didn’t want to speak about it, you still might lose. Though the Underworld was a thing of terrible power, there were far more gods and goddesses under Thor.

And you couldn’t exactly make Bucky a god of the Underworld really. He was the God of Spring already, which was only a thing for the living realm. And considering there wasn’t spring here _ever_ that didn’t exactly work as an Underworld responsibility. Even the flowers native to your land turned into a bit of a concentrated effort when he tried to summon them, not coming naturally to him. As it probably shouldn’t.

“Not to sound overly possessive--” you said, breaking the peaceful silence that had floated between you.

“More so than you normally are, you mean,” he interrupted.

“Yeah, I don’t think I can change that at this point?” you said, looking up to him a moment.

“Don’t worry, I like it,” Bucky said with a smirk.

“But really, not to sound _excessively_ possessive,” you continued. “But it would help if I could find some legally justifiable way to keep you.”

“Well, that makes me sound like a puppy you’ve taken home without permission,” he said, smirk still growing.

Most gods would hate the insinuation, their pride and egos too fragile to suffer the perceived insult of such words. But you knew from that first look in his eyes that there was no other way to say this, but Bucky loved being loved. He basked in it, was bewildered by it, didn’t believe something so keenly and exquisitely divine could be for him; the terror and pain of the Winter Soldier stealing away any right to have it and leaving nothing but a hollow desire for it. Before you came along anyway. Now he couldn’t seem to get enough.

“I mean, you pretty much are,” you shrugged. “Certainly just as cute as one.”

“Again, I’ll go with it,” he laughed, as peacefully joyful as anything to feel the warming hum of being wanted. You immediately felt that rolling, refreshing calm coming off him with a renewed purr.

“Okay, with _that_ settled, I need to find a way to keep you here, with me, legitimately,” you said. “So way that Thor has a harder time justifying trying to take you away. I mean, if only to bide more time until we get something concrete on Pierce, at the very least.”

You mulled options around in your head, speaking out loud and trying to find something that would work for this. Though you were looking out in the garden you couldn’t see the statuesque trees or deep teal and green colour abounding throughout, and though your head was still on Bucky’s chest you couldn’t hear the steady beat of his heart; all you focus was on trying to solve this one piece of the puzzle.

“I can’t sentence you because I can only sentence the dead, so that’s a non-starter. And I think whatever we think of has to have some kind of out for you too, just to be prudent.”

“I don’t want an _out_ ,” Bucky said, moving to sit up a little straighter and looking down to you like you had grown three heads.

“Okay, fine,” you said with a bit of an eye roll. “But I’d rather not hold you essentially captive forever. And I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck here for all eternity.”

The smile on his face formed again, steadily growing to become positively beaming.

“And why wouldn’t I want to be with you forever, Y/N?”

You paused, looking around a bit confused. Even with confounding expression on your face you couldn’t help but also feel a warm flush spread across your cheeks.

“Um, well, because this is the Underworld?” you retorted, working to hide that bit of embarrassment and vulnerability that mingled together. “And we’re just… Well, I don’t know what we are really, come to think of it.”

“Well fine, but I’m not leaving,” he said firmly, cupping your cheek with his broad hand and sporting a confident grin. “And know that I like the idea of staying with you forever.”

You saw a gleam in his eyes at that, one you knew you had mirrored in your own on more than one occasion.

It was love and longing and a lifetime of needing the other.

You had felt that feeling so deep in your bones at times it rattled and shook you to your core.

You tried to lower your head and avoid that gaze, heated through right down to your soul that burned and prickled and filled you with every indescribable, glorious feeling that love does. But Bucky’s hand on you held firm and loving. You wondered if he would go on, if he would go against what you had asked him before and just tell you how he felt. You waited for the clear and resounding words to be spoken between you, to either relieve or torment you.

But nothing came. Bucky merely leaned down and tenderly kissed the top of your head, letting another peaceful silence fall in the garden.

* * *

You had been exhausted from the lack of sleep last night… Well, actually, the lack of sleep compounded from the last month really. So at some point in the security of Bucky’s arms and in the soft shadows of the trees, you had drifted off to sleep.

When you woke you were momentarily confused before the soft feel of dark green grass and sound of rustling tree leaves filled you with familiarity.

Yawning largely you propped yourself up on your elbows, looking around the dim garden to spot Bucky who was notably absent from your side.

But your attention was immediately caught by the _hundreds_ of flower you saw, overtaking everything.

The light in the garden was a mix of grey and gold, as it must be near evening now. It cast a perfect glow on the white and gold flowers that surrounded you. They were rather large at about the size of your hand, and you recognized them as Elysium flowers. Their petals were broad and beautifully soft with a delicate line of gold that spread out from its centre. The stamen at the middle were quite long and pollen an absolutely glittering gold which swaying the wonderfully cool breeze. It painted everything with a glowing, golden edge.

Maybe he _was_ a natural at this.

You moved to get up and find him, but stopped as you saw your hands. Tiny little gold flecks spotted your skin and make you shine with a subtle light, the pollen softly clinging to you

“Hey,” came a soft voice as Bucky entered the garden.

For a moment you couldn’t look anywhere else but Bucky, the softly glittery golden air between you making the blue in his eyes gleam all the more, caught in his lashes and through his untamed chestnut hair. It was such a contrast to the large hard lines of muscles and silver steel of his arm. All you knew in that moment was that he was soft and hard and perfect. You couldn’t help but feel like he belonged here.

“Hey yourself,” you demurely, affected by the sight and feel of him in your dreamy state.

You blinked slow and happy as he came to sit beside you, his hip to yours. Gods, you wanted him by your side, always.

“How was the nap?” he asked quietly, moving to brush his fingers across yours.

You laid back down with a contented sigh, caught in a glorious, velvety bubble of ease with him here beside you now.

“Heavenly,” you murmured, watching the flecks float through the air above you, shimmering and catching the light like a mist come to life.

Bucky leaned back to lay on his side, propped up on one elbow and facing you. He didn’t look out to the air of gold dust or impressive blooms that surrounded you both but had eyes on you alone.

“I’m sorry if I was a bore,” you said with another silent yawn. “You could’ve woken me.”

“You’re hardly a bore,” He leaned down and kissed your shoulder, quiet voice muffled against the fabric. “I’ve been here long enough to say that definitively.”

“Well, still,” you said, floating into that blissful, sleepy warmth that surrounded you. “As your host I apologize if I’ve left you wanting.”

“ _You’re_ all I’m wanting,” he murmured into your shoulder again before you felt the ghost of his metal hand on your waist.

You couldn’t help but grin a little. It was a lopsided, lazy grin, etched from sleep and bliss.

“I don’t think that’s true,” you said, internally humming as his lips moved across your shoulder, getting closer to your throat.

“How could I not?” he breathed.

Your only response to that was the hitch of your breath as his lips made contact with your skin just at the crook of your neck. It sent a wave of warmth down your whole body, pooling and intensifying deep inside you.

“You taste like _flowers_ ,” he sighed into you, the deep timbre of his voice as thick and sweet as honey.

“Do I?” you mumbled with that grin still unable to fall from your lips. Covered in gold you had no doubt and you loved it all the same.

Bucky hummed a confirmation, the vibration of sound pressed into you as he continued making delicate, heated kisses. His hand on your waist was moving and gripping you more with every connection of his lips to you.

When he spoke it came in a sigh filled with longing and said so hushed you couldn’t be sure it was real or just in your sleep-hazed, love-stricken mind.

“Can I have you, Y/N?” Bucky hummed between slow, soft kisses on your collarbone, whispering the need into your flesh like a prayer. “Can you be mine?”

You weren’t sure if he was talking about your body or your soul or all of you, but that didn’t change your answer. It was yes. It would always be yes.

You felt his hand move from gripping your waist to shift down across your hip then to your thigh, grabbing hold of you. The other hand move to pull down the neck of your shirt just enough to brush more and more kisses lower across your skin.

You were about to speak the word “always” into the dwindling space between you when something sparked in your mind.

You shot up suddenly, pushing against Bucky and making him reel back abruptly to avoid a collision. He stared at you a second a bit bewildered and shocked, a question of why on his tongue before he saw you. Your eyes were wide and wild, lips parted, and breath coming to your chest rapid and shallow. You were positively glowing in the evening light, hands braced on his chest.

Bucky instantly grabbed you, pulling you across the little bit of distance between you and right to him, your hip touching his. You were settled tightly under his arm which wrapped around you, holding you flush against his side and chest, the beat of his increasing heart rate thumping out. His eyes were a flash of hunger, reacting to your sudden shift reflexively instead of completely understanding it.

“I have an idea,” you said, a bit breathless and watched his eyes settle on your lips, so close to touching them.

He swallowed, eyes remaining down and voice a honeyed rasp just above your lips. “What is it?”

“First I have to know something,” you whispered, refusing to let your self-doubt cloud your resolve, trying to let the overwhelming bliss of the last few moments give you confidence instead.

You knew. Of _course_ you knew. But it was different knowing something in your mind and hearing it confirmed from the other person.

“Anything,” he whispered, nose dipping and head tilting just slightly, drawn to you beyond what he could resist in the moment.

“Do you…” You swallowed, hesitating for just a moment. Bucky placed one warm kiss on the side of your mouth, lingering against your skin.

“Tell me,” he breathed.

“How… how do you feel about me?”

Bucky paused, looking up at you with brows furrowed and his grip on you momentarily relaxed. He opened his mouth before closing it, then tried again.

“You really want to know now?” he asked, either surprised by the timing or surprised that you couldn’t guess in an intimate moment like this. He probably had wondered along the lines if you would ever change your mind about wanting to know, but this was it.

You moved your head down just slightly in a nod, slow and apprehensive but steady.

You felt his hand slip under the back of your shirt, moving up your spine and sending warm shivers through you. It brought you closer to him, and you tried not to look away. You felt his other hand trace along your jawline and settle on your neck, thumb pushing up on your chin so you had no choice now but to look at him.

“Y/N, I _love_ you,” he said softly as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Everything in and around you stilled, the golden air itself held motionless at his words.

He kissed your cheek, making your breath hitch and eyes close as relief and tenderness began to fill you down to your toes. It choked out any intelligible thought and left your body, heart, and soul completely at his mercy.

“Deeply.”

Bucky kissed one corner of your mouth and your hand gripped his bicep, seeking stability against the overwhelming feeling of being really, truly loved.

“Completely.”

He kissed the other side of your mouth and you fought leaning in to capture his lips with yours.

“ _Recklessly_.”

When his lips did finally seal to yours it was warm and decadent, his kiss wet and wanton and intense. You welcomed it, flooded with an intoxicated euphoria at his words and dizzying heat at his lips and body enveloping yours.

When he broke away, you didn’t have the time to protest the loss, immediately melting into the feel of him working kisses down your jawline.

You felt him working faster, his mouth moving quicker and more intent kisses down your throat, the soft wet feel of his tongue slipping out or teeth gently nipping your skin as he went, needing connection. He was hungry for you, just as much as you were for him, but as want clouded your mind and body, you tried to work up the will to have him stop for a moment so you could speak your idea.

It was a losing game as he moved back up, pressing hungry kisses in the soft skin behind your ear. So you settled to whisper the words to him, a burning heat flooding your skin the moment you spoke the first syllable.

“Then if you love me,” you said, more breathless then when you started. “Bucky… will you marry me?”

There was a slight jerk to Bucky’s grip on you, stopping his movements in his tracks. You could feel his heated breath falling from your ear down your neck. You felt the coiled tension of his muscles release slightly but the fast breathing in his chest started to thrum against yours even harder.

“You said you wanted to be with me forever, right?” Your voice was whisper light, tense and too high. And though the words came none too steady, you said them anyways. “This way you could be. It’s not a guarantee you could stay, but it might be able to work. Thor would have a harder time disputing it this way.”

You shook out your head, wrapping your arms around his neck and threading your hands into his hair, pressing your body flush to his again. You turned your head, your nose pushing into his cheek and the little bits of stubble there.

“I mean, but that’s not the only reason why I want to marry you,” you said, screwing your eyes tightly closed before opening them to search for an answer. “I love you Bucky and I want to be with you because of that. Always. Please let me.”

You paused waiting in the poignant silence a moment, feeling your own muscles tighten with unbearable tension. Soon your breath was beating as rapid as his, hammering in your body.

“You can have me, always,” you whispered into him, beginning to come undone with a mixture of fear and wanting. “I can be yours, _always_. Please, Bucky. Please say yes?”

The last time Bucky pinned you to the ground it had been his body, but not him. The Winter Soldier, blood covered and relentless, had taken over with the cold, ruthless intent of trying to murder you where you stood.

This was much different.

In a flash you felt the ground at your back, Bucky’s body pressing on top just as unyielding as the ground below you. There was a deep rumble in the ground as his lips crashed into yours while his hands held either side of your face. His kiss was impossibly, fiercely rapturous, as though from your lips he found the life-giving water he craved and found in you, intent on drinking in every last drop. He breathed you in and bound you in and fought to consume you down to your soul.

You would have bolted upright in a staggering shock if you could have, a thunderous cracking and cascade of crumbling like shattering stone and falling trees sounded all around you. The smell of cherries and vanilla and birch bark filled the air, weighing heavily in the gilded air. You moved not to break away but see what was happening, but vines wrapped around your limbs which were wrapped around him, binding your body against his and locking the two of you together.

In the vibrating rumble of the ground, you succumbed to the severity of passion from Bucky above you, somehow far more of an ecstatic force than what was happening around you. You met his tongue with yours, his breathlessness for your own, his profoundly soul-shattering need for you with your own for him.

When Bucky broke apart the sounds didn’t stop though he barely seemed aware, his gleaming ocean blue eyes set beautifully against the red flush of his cheeks as he looked down at you. His fingers were caught in your hair and he seemed completely love-drunk and lust-ridden.

“Yes,” was all he said before he was kissing you again, catching and inhaling the sound of joy and bewilderment you spoke.

Another crack rang out through the garden and you turned, Bucky capturing and moving searing kisses down your neck. All around you saw trees springing up from the cracked open ground with pink and white and gold flowers bursting forth in full bloom. The towering trees were growing up from the ground with such speed and force they broke apart the garden walls and tore through the stone archways, rubble shooting up in the sky and crashing loudly in the courtyard around you.

It was a rain of stone and petals and gold; an explosion of spring in the Underworld, the full bloom of life and renewal erupting before your eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like the last chapter, this was not at all the plan!! And I mean, I think I can say a proposal is kinda a big deal to a story like this, so this is a lil bit of a curveball for me lol. I wrote out this chapter twice and I think to avoid doing that again I’m going to take a couple days and rework my outline a bit. I’ll try not to leave you hanging too long! In the meantime please let me know what you thought? I need hella validation for this decision lol.


	13. Just You and Him

You were expecting the glow of golden pollen on your skin still from the blossoming of white flowers in the garden yesterday.

As you looked in your bathroom mirror you were backgrounded with gold: the floor, walls, counters were all shining in the expansive room with the precious metal.

But as you turned your head and ran your fingers up and down the skin on your arms and chest, the shimmery pollen itself was completely gone. Bucky had kissed every inch of skin on your body last night, taking the little gold flecks off you and replacing it with his lips, warm and wet and perfect.

Running a hand up your arm, you felt the residual heat of Bucky’s skin clinging to you still, having a moment ago been curled under him as he slept, his skin to yours and heart beating low against you. Gods, you never wanted to leave that bed or comfort or him. You wanted to keep running your fingers so lightly down the side of his face, threading through his feathery hair. You had wanted to stay and be overtaken by the sheer warmth and contentment of waking up in the arms of the one you loved.

Despite your chill he had looked warm, a pale pink on his cheek and a soft look of eased across his face as you touched him, an expression that was of subtly, sleepy contentment. You couldn’t bear leaving, but you couldn’t bear waking him up from that moment either. So carefully you had slipped out from under his protective hold, silently slipping on your robe and retreating to the bathroom.

Even now you felt him on your skin still, felt him in the marrow of your bones, were wrapped in the memory of him being locked against you all night. The giddy, dreamy, contented haze filled your view just as it did in bed, clouding everything around you. You didn’t know if you were smiling or floating or dreaming but it didn’t matter. A lover of control, you had found something- someone- much better, and freely gave it up if it meant feeling like this.

The soft padding of footsteps in the bedroom reached through that love-drunk haze, and you felt your heart stutter with an anticipation verging on desperation to see him. It was as though it had been months and not minutes since you last saw him. But it didn’t matter; if his arms weren’t around you and his lips not on you your heart would always ache until he was close again.

The door slowly opened as Bucky came into view, searching for you. Sleep was still in his bright eyes but the moment they caught yours it sparked something that spread through him: a smile forming, muscles relaxing, and immediately moved to be closer to you. His chest was bare and sweat pants low on his hips, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from him if you tried, your smile growing with every step he got closer.

As his arms found their way around your waist you felt your body automatically melt into his. Against your back he felt hard and muscled, his arms wrapped around you lovingly possessive, and that contented look in his eyes shouted praises of devotion for you. As he leaned down you felt your hair brushed aside by his nose and a kiss pressed into the back of your neck.

“Marry me?” he whispered, smiling into the kiss as his head tilted to the side to look at you in the mirror. His eyes danced with adoration and satisfaction and so much more. It was the same look you had on too.

He had spoken those words last night as he covered you and coveted you and moved inside you. Words like _marry me_ , _I love you_ , _stay with me_ , and _love me_. Your name was the only one he uttered over and over, whispered and screamed and said like a worshipper’s song of praise.

Now you could feel your grin burst across your expression with a half-hearted eye roll for its companion, turning your head and nuzzled into his jawline a little.

“Hmm,” you hummed, pretending to consider it. You felt the rumble of a chuckle in his chest as he placed a kiss on your forehead. “Yes, I think I will.”

“If you need more convincing I could help with that,” he mumbled, trailing kisses down your cheek as his hands moved to your hips. You felt the pressure of his fingertips and let him guide you, turning you around and flush to him as the counter edge pushed against the small of your back.

You nodded already breathless, mouth opening to his as his lips caught yours, meeting his tongue and wrapping your arms around him. You couldn’t tell where his body started and yours ended, the cool of your skin and the warmth of his meeting and leveling off to become the same. The blissful heaviness and haze of realized love covered you both now with the heated, languid movements of his lips consuming you and pressure of his body pinning you the only thing felt.

When he finally released your lips, you stood still breathless and still unable to tear your eyes away from him.

_Him_.

You were getting married to him. You would have him forever with you.

_Him_.

He was not merely divinity personified but so much more than that or any other god you had ever seen. He was real and warm and perfect. And somehow he was yours.

The thought made your lungs shake and bones quiver and heart burst within your chest at the thought, the overwhelming joy turning you to rubble. Despite feeling him with your body and hearing his words and seeing him before you with wide eyes, you still could only barely believe it.

Now once the kiss ended Bucky didn’t move to let you go. He didn’t watch you wide-eyed and wondering like you were with him. He didn’t try and keep from trembling like you were.

Bucky’s head was turned just to the side with his eyes still closed, small satisfied grin on his kiss-swollen lips. You were overwhelmed in that moment while he looked to be quite something else. He looked fulfilled, just drowning in the feel of you, the taste of you, and the realization that he had you. Forever and always.

Eyes still shut and savouring the moment, Bucky moved to place his forehead on yours, a silent sigh leaving his chest as he breathed you in. Wordlessly you did the same, bound to him in this moment and here hence.

* * *

 

Looking out the window there was the faint reflection of you from head to toe, standing there in the dawn light. You saw yourself with your black robe trailed out behind you, its silk fabric edged with intricate lace details as you held your coffee mug in both hands. Outside of that reflection was a forest of dark green mixed with teals as leaves and foliage grew against black bark.

What had caught your attention singularly though was the sky beyond that.

Your house was very close to the border of your realm and Thor’s. Although the border was clear and defined, the two realms influenced each other, with the bright and lively bleeding into the grey and cold on that borderline.

In the sky of your realm you saw the usual dim grey of the morning, hazy and endless. But you could see on the horizon where your sky ended and Thor’s began that a deep navy and twilight purple storm was brewing. Billowy and churning and ominous, it painted the sky of your realm with just a tinge of colour as the transition bled from one to the other. In the minutes you had been here with your coffee still untouched, the colour had yet deepened. It almost seemed more like evening than dawn now.

You saw in the reflection Bucky come up beside you, hand brushing across the silk on the small of your back, his hip settling against yours. He had the entire house and he found his way to you, unable to not be touching you.

As you watched his reflection from the window you saw he didn’t notice the sky at all, his eyes glued to you. He didn’t take a sip from his coffee, abandoning the morning comfort in his hands for his new favourite comfort: you.

He leaned in, kissing delicately behind your ear before pulling away just slightly to sound a bit of a hum of satisfaction, before leaning in again. You almost forgot the look of the sky outside, eyelids slowly dropping with that intoxicated feel of him that always followed when he kissed you like this.

“Will you marry me?” he breathed into your skin.

You took a moment, loving both him and those words, before forcing yourself to focus outside of your bubble of love and devotion and onto reality instead.

“Yeah, I think we better,” you responded quietly. The serious intonation in your voice made him look to you, before following your eyes to the horizon.

You felt the comforting pressure of his hand wrapped around on your hip and he squeezed just slightly. You looked to him and he nodded.

It was time.

* * *

 

Weddings in the Underworld certainly weren’t as typical as in the land of the living but today there would be at least one.

Walking down the hall, you had on the same gown from that first night you had met Bucky, flowing around you in elegant black swirls as you moved. It seemed fitting for this occasion, with the look and feel of this dress associated with Bucky now. What was different from that night was the crown and jewels you adorned with it.

Around your head was a ring of gold, so pure that it practically glowed, almost like a halo. It looked like your version of a flower crown had Bucky worn before, wrapping in a circle around your head. Laying on your neck and suspended in more luminous gold were the rarest of bright white jewels. They shone like stars and made dazzling patterns of brilliant beams on the walls when caught just so by the light

It matched the riches of the gallery you stepped into, rare pieces and bright glittering jewels placed under glass and on display. The light overhead that shone down made the contents sparkle and design the walls and ceilings with beautiful patterns of light and colour. There were similar rooms for the paintings and sculptures that you had acquired through the years, but this place was your favourite.

For a brief moment you stood by the table in the middle of the room, contents for the ceremony already there and waiting as you were, though probably not as anxiously. It was only moments later when Bucky walked through the doors and instantly quelled your rippling nerves. You knew that nothing in here or of the world looked half as good as he did.

He had on a black suit with a black shirt and black tie; darker than his usual fair but completely dashing. His hair was combed but loose, cascading down around his face and touching his shoulders. As he walked towards you both his smile grew to a size and glow you had yet to see, and a halo of flowers did as well. Those little white flowers you now loved so much blossomed on his flower crown, sweet and delicate. The room was instantly filled with the smells of spring and cedar and floral blooms.

As he approached Bucky didn’t stop until his forehead was pressed to yours and his hands held your hips to his.

You could think of a thousand things to say yet nothing fitting for this moment at all. No words could match this feeling or this delight inside you so you didn’t try.

With a reluctant smile Bucky released you and took a small step away from you, so his back was to one side of the room and yours the other. You stood face to face for a moment before you took a deep breath and nodded to him.

With measured movements you held up your hand, palm facing Bucky. He followed suit, pressing the broad palm of his flesh hand to yours. For a moment you were both still and everything was quiet in the open room. Slowly he tilted his hand so his fingers rested in between yours. He pressed gently and parted them, entwining your hand and his, holding your hand firm and steady.

With your free hand you took the first of the few elements on the table. It was a split open pomegranate, with pearly white flesh and ruby red seeds like jewels inlaid into it. You held it to Bucky, who took it and bite into the red seeds before returning the fruit back to you.

It was his turn next and he took a red apple, shiny and smooth, and placed it in your hand. When you bite down, it was light and crisp and sweet. You pulled a bit of face through your smile as you chewed, this fruit not customary to the Underworld or to a ceremony like this. By the quirk of his lips he knew it too.

“I grew it myself,” he said in explanation, happy with himself and your expression at his choice.

With your bite taken you gave it back to him, and Bucky placed it next to the pomegranate.

You glanced down at the table, eyes searching for the next piece of the wedding ceremony. These things started and ended with with holding then releasing hands, symbolizing your willing and unbreakable union. The next was offering the other a piece of fruit or delicacy, symbolizing the others needs would be provided for. The third and last part of this was more of a vow of sorts, with a small gift given to the other.

Back eons ago it was to signify the life of riches in store and became an extravagant thing. Through the years it morphed into something smaller and more meaningful. It was now a small, sentimental token given to the other. And as you scanned the table top, you didn’t see anything there.

A flash of anxiety hit you at that. Maybe you didn’t go over this in detail enough before getting dressed? Maybe he didn’t think it important? Maybe he somehow forgot?

You didn’t need anything of course; that wasn’t really the point nowadays anyway. It was supposed to be something about the relationship or how the other felt about you. And you knew well how Bucky felt about you now.

You looked him, trying to keep any of those rampant questions slinging through your mind from showing, trying to push forward a look of acceptance instead. Bucky was gift enough for you anyways.

But he reached into his jacket, pulling out something rather small and placed it into your hand.

You looked at the little envelope, holding it gently between your fingers as understanding flooded you.

“I know you didn’t read it. I saw it in your desk.” he started. He didn’t look upset or irritated, quite the opposite. He had the smallest knowing smile on his face, like he knew you wouldn’t have read it then and guessed at what your reaction would be now. “Open it for me.”

You remember that little envelope clearly. It came with that first bouquet of flowers he had sent you, delivered courtesy of Pietro and had sat unopened in among the rapidly dying blooms. At the time you had avoided it and shoved it into your desk drawer. You couldn’t bring yourself to read what it was inside back when you were fighting feelings for him and scared for what he may have written. But also couldn’t bear to throw it away either. So that little pale ghost sat neglected, haunting you until it was simply forgotten.

You quietly opened up the little thing, seeing an equally small parchment card inside with Bucky’s cramped writing on it. You opened the card and read out loud.

“One day I’ll make you ones that will last forever,” you said, looking up curiously at Bucky.

You saw his eyes fill with a fondness as memories came into view for you both.

“That night on the balcony, when we first met,” he said. In a moment you were back there, cool air and open skies and Bucky. “There wasn’t the Underworld or anyone else. It was just us. And I saw the look in your eyes. How much you wanted that flower I grew, but how much you seemed to dread taking it too.”

He swallowed and looked down a moment before looking up to you with smile bright and eyes dancing with the dazzle of the room around him.

“I decided I’d grow you something that you could always have, no matter what or where. I wanted you think about me. Carry a piece of me with you. To be connected with me regardless of anything else, just like that night.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled something out, holding it in his palm for you to take.

Tentatively you took the little present from his hand, eyes widening in warm surprise as you saw it.

The present was round and thin like that of a coin, crystal clear and glinting in the light. The thin edge was trimmed with a silvery platinum, delicately crafted. What was suspended inside had you beaming.

It was a tiny white flower. The same in his crown now, the same from the bouquet, and the same from that night too.

“I had never actually grown that kind of flower before that night... Before meeting you,” he said as you studied the small, precious thing with loving wonder. “Since then I’ve hardly been able to stop. It’s your flower, you see. And I wanted you to have it with you, always.”

Held forever in its clear casing the white petalled flowers laid. Neither age or death would wither it. It was completely perfect.

“I wanted you to have it without that fear and hesitation you showed that night. Just like I wanted you to want _me_ without reservation, because I wanted you the moment I saw you. Wholly and completely.”

For a moment you couldn’t speak, your happiness ready to break you apart.

“It’s beautiful,” you said, whispered lightly to him through your constricted throat. “When… when did you even have time to make this?”

“Yesterday, while you were napping, actually,” he said, a cheeky twist to his grin.

You didn’t know if somehow he knew you two would end up here so quickly, his confidence in you and this relationship clearly firm from the start. Or maybe it was something he had decided to make and keep with him until a moment like this happened, as though holding onto hope itself that it would. Either way you only knew that it was impossible to love him more; you’d burst at the seams if you tried.

You clutched the medallion in your hand, creating a fist around it and holding it to your heart. “I’ll keep it with me, always. No reservations about that. Not ever.”

He leaned in and kissed you gently on the head, creating a slow, smooth shiver of warmth float down you. You wanted him to stay, to just wrap you up and keep you held to him always, but he pulled back, standing opposite to you again with hand still holding yours.

You paused then, swallowing as the warmth was replaced by cool and uncertain feeling pricking in your chest. This was the only part you had been nervous about really, and you almost wished you had more time to delay.

“I have something for you but…” You hesitated, not at all confident with your gift to him, especially after the thought and care he put into yours. “I guess I wanted you to have some of the Underworld… some piece of me with you always too.”

You took a breath and with an encouraging nod from him, you closed your eyes for a moment.

When they opened you were looking at him with that icy, glacial blue. It covered the colour and whites of your eyes. You blinked slowly as cool concentration settled on your face.

Bucky watched wide-eyed as the giving of your gift began to unfold.

Atop your head the woven, luminous gold that circled your brow started to look like it was moving. It was a though it shifted from a solid to a liquid, moving around your head like a ring of glittering gold water.

Soon the gold crown began to melt down into delicate tendrils, flowing down your hair, then shoulders. It wrapped and wisped down your arm, moving just above your skin as though floating.

Carefully you reached out to Bucky, lightly touching his metal arm where the gold waiting at your fingertips. Upon touching him it Immediately took hold and moved. You and Bucky continued to watch as it moved from your arm to his metal one in those wispy tendrils. It glided and spun around the silvery-blue metal, weaving into the plates and outlining them, glinting and unbreakable.

As the gold began to settle and turned back into a solid to become one with his arm, the hum in the air that you didn’t realize was there began to quiet. In that stillness you blinked, slowly raising your eyelids to show your eyes as back to their original state.

There was more meaning to this gesture than you could speak.

You wanted to tell him you accepted him: arm and danger and history and all. You wanted to say you loved him: arm and danger and history and all. You wanted to tell him he was safe with you, protected with you, and loved with you. That you embraced every piece of him openly and wantedly and unreservedly.

But again, for what felt like the hundredth time, you couldn’t put any of it into words. They all would fall so desperately short of the love you felt for him.

You were held still, breath rapid and mind racing, emotions spilling out of you in unseen waves.

Buck held up his arm, flexing it silently as the thin inlay of gold metal shone against the blue-silver of the original metal.

You were about to say you could take it back, that he didn’t have to have that reminder of you painted on him, but as you opened your mouth his movement cut your off. His metal hand reached to your waist, pulling you flush against him.

His forehead was pressed against yours, looking deeply into yours and holding a thousand words and emotions. Whatever words you were going to speak you suddenly felt as though you didn’t need too. Bucky understood every unspoken word you wanted to say and reciprocated wordlessly in kind. In that moment you both were left speechless, held under and held back by the tidal wave of love you shared.

Bucky tilted his head down slightly, watching as his hand slowly untangled from yours. It didn’t leave your skin, but traveled up your arm and woven instead into your hair, holding you steady and close.

And with the hold of your hands now broken, the ceremony was over. You were officially married.

You could hear Bucky swallow, the air suddenly becoming somehow thicker than the dizzying lightness there had once been. It held a weight and intensity and you felt yourself drawing him closer to you. Bucky tilted his head down as you brought him nearer, his lips connecting chaste and light to yours.

It was gentle and slow, filled with the promises of a thousand more. You inhaled, expecting to be released and pull away but Bucky’s grasp around your waist only pressed you closer.

Slowly Bucky coaxed your lips apart, a shiver of dizziness spreading through you as the kiss grew deeper. It was as though Bucky was intent on drawing you out piece by piece, the hard and wet feel of him consuming you. You let him overtake you and overwhelm you, melting into him and becoming a part of him just as the gold of your crown had. And come what may you were destined to stay just as permanent and unbreakable together too.

Only the combination of three simultaneous intrusions that happened at once could have possibly woken you from this taste of heaven on your lips and against your body: a deep and shattering thunderclap, a rumbling and venomous howl, and the ringing of your security alarm that signaled someone was at the gate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that though I did read up on wedding ceremonies for this, this is basically made up so don’t take it as historically accurate. Thanks for your patience while I reworked the outline for this story! Please let me know what you thought of this chapter??


	14. When a Goddess Goes to War

You hadn’t thought your very first act as a married goddess would be to protect your god, but it was looking like that would be exactly the case.

The two of you strode down the hall, the thunderclaps having only increased in the minutes since the ceremony was complete. You wanted a moment to bask in being married, to feel Bucky slip your dress off of you and replace it with his body.

But your formal wear was abandoned for your everyday tailored black long sleeve and dark jeans. Bucky had the done the same now in his red long sleeve, matching you stride for stride as the two of you walked fast down to the front of the house. The both of you wore the same intent and focused expression on your faces as you went.

This was not how you wished your day would go- much less your wedding day- but you were prepared for it nonetheless. At least you hoped so.

As you hand reached out and held the front doorknob, ready to walk out and address this head-on, Bucky’s clasped over it and held your hand still. His emanating warmth immediately began moving through you, your focus breaking as the clean, thick scent of spring circling around you.

“What if you didn’t meet him?” Bucky asked, voice low and expression unreadable.

“We both know that’s not an option here, Bucky,” you said slowly.

Your eyes briefly flitted between his, wondering what he was holding back behind that look.

Thor was at the gate, and you would have to meet him. It would happen eventually and although you didn’t want this to happen at all, it needed too. You couldn’t have the possibility of losing him hanging over your head indefinitely.

Bucky knew this full well too, so you waited as he took a breath, his brows furrowing.

“Then let me come with you,” he said. The guarded expression in his eyes slipped away, flashing instead a seriousness and concern that ran deep. “I don’t want you out there alone.”

“He’s not here for me, remember?” you reminded gently. “You’re the one he’s come for. Regardless of what he does or doesn’t do, I’ll have Cerberus with me so I won’t be alone. Nothing in hell or otherwise could pull him away.”

You watched as he clenched his jaw, a silent sigh held in his chest as that deep blue concern shone like dark gems in his eyes.

“I also don’t want you to jump head first into a fight over me, Y/N,” he said, hand still holding yours from opening the door. He shook his head out a little, his metal hand moving to your elbow, maybe steady to you but maybe because he needed his hands on you as much as you wanted them. “Y/N... We’re married now. I stood with you then and let me stand with you now.”

You could feel a distinct waver to your decision that moments previous- however gently put- was firm. You could feel this for what it was: a want to protect you, to keep you close, to be with you come what may.

“Like you said,” Bucky continued, interrupting your thoughts and making your decision sway all the more. Because selfishly you wanted him close to you too. “Cerberus will be there and nothing from Thor’s realm can touch me here, right?”

With his hand on yours, you turned the handle and open the door up to your realm and oncoming storm. Taking a first step out, you looked back and waited as Bucky followed suit, stepping in tandem beside you as you both walked out under the increasingly stormy skies to meet the guest at your gate.

Your eyes narrowed and muscles tightened under your skin when you got to the end of the lane and saw not one but two figures standing outside the soaring black gate, opposite to your hell hound Cerberus.

Thor, the God of Thunder and the Ruler of the Living Realm, had always looked the part. Blonde hair with a build that towered over even Bucky, he exuded a confidence and power that was impossible to deny. Clad in a tailored maroon velvet suit jacket, grey v-neck shirt, and black pants, you noted that at the very least he wasn’t dressed for war. That possibility was always lurking under the surface, but you were glad your friendship with him at least extended to include discussion before action.

It was Pierce standing next to him in his blue suit and red tie that made your fist tighten. The moment they did you felt the low rumbling hum of Cerberus’s growl, responding to your heightened emotions, though your expression remained casual.

“Y/N, my friend,” Thor started as you stopped several feet back from the black gate bars, Cerberus on your right and Bucky on your left. Bucky’s expression was neutral and closed off, while Cerberus looked positively deadly, not at all hiding what he was feeling for intruders close to his territory. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Thor,” you said amiably enough, ignoring both Pierce whose eyes were glued to you and the cavalcade of black SUVs parked a distance back, filled with what you assumed to be gods and goddesses of all sorts. So maybe he was prepared for war after all. “It’s always a pleasure to have you visit me.”

“You and _Bucky_ ,” Thor pointed out, turning to speak the man beside you in his signature deep and smooth voice like that of rolling thunder. “You look well, I’m glad to see that.”

Bucky nodded deeply out of respect but chose to remain silent. He made no move to look at Pierce and Pierce made no move or sound. If he had you did not doubt your facade of amiability would collapse into one of rage in an instant. It should have scared you that you’d resort to all-out war over something so small a gesture from one man, but it didn’t.

Beside you the white teeth of Cerberus shone brighter, pulling back in a sneer as he smelt the threat of death coming off you. Bucky glanced down to the side, not quite making eye contact with you, feeling the rolling emotions coming off what appeared to be a calm outward appearance. Inside it was anything but.

“I was quite surprised to hear of Bucky’s presence here, in the Underworld of all places,” Thor commented with thinly veiled lightness, the accent of his voice not betraying his state of emotions, though his eyes watched you carefully. “Considering you know well the treaty we struck between us.”

“I do,” you said, shifting your weight to one side and placing a hand on your hip as though casually.

There was a pause, Thor holding your gaze as the first confirmation of several to come was spoken.

Because you knew and now admitted what you had done was against the treaty. Though Thor perhaps thought you would try to deny it, there was no way around it.

Eventually he nodded to himself a little before letting go of the pretense and gesturing to you.

“Then, if we can speak honestly, Y/N,” he said voice beginning to drop the pleasantry tone for something more honest and obvious. He was trying to understand this, trying to see the truth under what Pierce had told him. Well, you hoped anyway. “You know you cannot kidnap and hold hostage a god of mine in your realm. And I know you not to be a foolish person.”

You tried not to bristle when Thor said “his god” and luckily your face remained coolly neutral. Before you could speak Bucky responded instantly, eyes still decidedly trained on Thor and not Pierce.

“I don’t wish to leave,” he said quickly and low, less of a request and more a statement.

Only then did Pierce make his first movement and sound. Your eyes snapped to his as he rolled them, leaning in to Thor to speak. Bucky momentarily grabbed your wrist as Pierce gave his attention to Thor, holding you back (at least in the moment) from sprinting forward and impaling the man on your gate before he could speak.

The gravel under Cerberus’s paws crunched as his claw dug in deeper, but it didn’t mask the sound of your enemy’s voice.

“See, I told you,” he said, as though regretfully so, shaking his head slightly at you. 

Your eyes again narrowed, while a flash of concern but still more curiosity flashed across Thor’s face. You remembered the days when he was far less thinking and far more hotheaded and grimly you thanked the Fates it wasn’t as such now.

“Speak up, if you have something to say,” you spat at Pierce, settling for lashing out with words if you couldn’t use your fists.

Pierce sighed, hands in his pockets, and looked to hem and haw over speaking, like you were somehow forcing him to say something against his will. You knew his games better now and saw right through it.

“ _I_ believe,” he started hand on his heart a moment as though he didn’t want to over-step and speak for both him and Thor, as though to seem reasonable. “And after our last conversation told Thor as much, that you’re _manipulating_ Bucky here.”

His voice was like a spider in crawling in your ear, squirming and biting and unignorable. You wanted to reach out and grab him by his thinning red hair and throw him in Tartarus to rot and burn.

In your peripherals you saw Bucky move, just shift on his feet and cross his arms. The movement, as was his intention no doubt, focused you back on him for a moment. It calmed you the smallest amount as only he could do.

_We’re not starting a war today, we’re not starting a war today_ … you reminded yourself in your mind like a mumbled mantra.

Subtly Bucky was doing his best to help you, and you knew throwing Pierce into Tartarus was _not_ the way to resolve this at all. That would certainly put you in far more hot water with Thor so you refrained and dealt with his smooth and irritating voice.

“I mean, with all due respect, Y/N,” he carried on, signaling to you that he meant no respect at all, despite his father-like tone, concerned and verging on sad for you. “How could you blame me? Look at you; like the Goddess of the Dead and the Underworld could reasonably be _enough_ for a God of the Spring like his man here. You simply don’t _belong_ together, so I know something is off. Coupled with your venomous words last time…”

Pierce trailed off with a shrug, pursed lips and a deep sigh. Clearly he had already filled Thor on those details (however wildly distorted, you assumed), whose face pulled together with a bitter looking remembrance.

You, on the other hand, had to keep your face from scrunching up for a different reason. A tinge of pain jabbed somewhere in your soul, a confirmation of an insecurity you had managed to get over. Or so you thought. Apparently it had just been lying dormant.

_You didn’t belong together._

_You weren’t enough._

_He couldn’t want to be with you. Not really._

You had whispered those thoughts to yourself from the time you first met him, hurting and suffocating your heart with those words. So in a twist of lucky fate, you had ample practice with stifling those thoughts by now.

You swallowed down those words ringing in your head, the stubborn part of you refusing to let Pierce make you feel anything less than what you were. 

Because as you got closer with Bucky over time, the echo and caress of his love overtook those words.

Bucky _loved_ you.

He _wanted_ to be here.

He was standing right beside you, insisting to not let you leave his side.

Gods, he was even helping you keep yourself from starting an all-out war here.

So confidently you took a breath, head held high and cold gaze on Pierce unwavering. But before you could respond he spoke up again.

“Or what, is Bucky here under your “protection”?” Pierce asked, both innocent and mocking.

“Yes--” you said as though that was obvious before he cut you off.

“This is some sick retaliation for destroying her realm,” he said to Thor, shaking his head at the absurdity and looking to you pitifully.

“No, this is--”

“The fact that we are even in this position is a gross abuse of her responsibility as rul--”

“Stop,” Thor commanded Pierce, holding up a hand to him. The blonde god sighed, turning to you. “Y/N, _regardless_ of whatever it is that happened here leading us to this point, Bucky needs to come back to the tower with me. We’ll sort it out what happened with him there.”

“I know what happened Thor,” you said confidently, a side glance to Pierce.

“Well then Y/N,” he said. “Tell me and show me proof of it. I do not ask for anything unreasonable from you.”

You couldn’t deny that your heart sank a little at those words. You felt your black hound beside you take a step closer to you, ready and within arm’s reach to support you. But, just like you knew going into this, there was no way around this conversation.

“I don’t have proof,” The words were bitter in your mouth.

Gods, you just wish you had had more time! More time to prove to Thor the deceit in his court and save Bucky from manipulation and Thor himself from an unknown fate.

“Then I need you to tell me why,” Thor said, voice firm and edged with something that sounded akin to hurt. “Explain to me your truth, Y/N. Explain to me why you would break years of peace and friendship between us over one god.”

“Pierce is orchestrating this,” you started, taking a step forward as your bubbling emotions were begging you to move or do something. “We have dossiers and files on his underhanded dealings and connection to an elite god hit team working under our noses, under some secret and sinister organization.”

You took a breath, stepping back and tried to calm yourself before continuing. “I’m not trying to hurt you _or_ break our friendship here, Thor. I’m trying to tell you the truth.”

“What’s the name?” Thor asked, taking you a little off guard. It took a second but you clued in to his question, clearly one already planted there by Pierce. “The name of the organization?”

You blinked slowly, gritting your teeth a moment.

“It’s not important the name.”

“What is it Y/N?”

_Shit._

You took a moment, avoiding Pierce’s stare, but you answered.

“Hydra,” you grimaced.  

“Hydra?” he repeated, as though let down by your answer. “You mean the being that lives in your realm and answers to you alone?”

“No, Thor,” Pierce had even thought of _this_? How, you didn’t know, whether it was coincidence or not. But by that vapid, blank look in his eyes you doubted this wasn’t a part of his plan. “No, it’s not related to _any_ part of the Underworld. It’s different, I swear it.”

You felt a rumbling frustration compel you forward, voice quieted as you looked openly to Thor, eyes imploring.

“Thor we need to take counsel together and alone,” you said, seeing him on the verge of considering something, and you only hoped it was your words and not the venomous ones planted by Pierce. “I will detail all that I have. You’ll understand why I _know_ what I know. Please, for your own realm’s sake, I beg you.”

“But you have no concrete proof,” he sighed in confirmation, shouldering slacking. “No way to prove anything you could say.”

You responded by sighing in exasperation, throwing your hands up before gripping your hips harshly. “No, I don’t have proof.”

“Then he’s leaving Hades, Y/N,” Thor said, frustrated and frowning. “Because the only betrayal that I know of concretely is your own.”

He gestured to Bucky with that pained but hard expression on his face, though it was nothing compared to the pain inside you.

You felt the time for talking about this was just about over now. At least you were about done with talking. 

Maybe Thor wasn’t swayed one way or the other- it was hard to tell and he was smart enough not to tip his cards to either you or Pierce- but he wouldn’t leave without Bucky.

Unfortunately, you wouldn’t let Bucky go either.

“He’s not leaving.”

It was a statement, hard and unyielding.

There was a distant rumble in the sky behind the two men in front of you, and you thought you had seen the bright white flash of distant lightning. You could feel an electricity in the air, little atoms sparking invisibly around you.

“He has no clear claim to stay, and--”

“He does,” you said over Thor, ready to drop what would hopefully spare you the oncoming maelstrom. “We’re married, Thor.”

The words brought a stillness that laid heavy in the space around the five of you. Not even the leaves of the trees moved or made a sound. The storm behind Thor stilled momentarily and the storm that was now growing behind you waited too.

Thor just stood, look of surprising falling into one of confusion as he looked between you and Bucky.

“This is some new deceit,” Pierce said, first to interrupt the thick quiet, trying to bring this back to something evil and manipulative, when the love and union you had with Bucky was the complete opposite of that.

You didn’t even acknowledge his words, speaking to Thor alone.

“It isn’t,” you said simply. “The ledger in my courts will show this. All the proper documentation was done. I’ll provide you a copy if you need. But it is true, Thor.”

“When?” he asked, voice sounding strained.

“This morning.” His face pulled into one of pain and frustration and regret.

“Damn it, Y/N,” he said, fist clenching. His look of frustration didn’t fade.

You couldn’t blame him, knowing what it was like to be a ruler of a realm but also a person who felt. Whereas you were conflicted between your love of Bucky and your duties as Goddess of the Underworld, Thor stood there conflicted between being the Ruler of the Living Realm and the relationship he had with you.

But you weren’t planning on losing this debate or Bucky.

“He’s staying,” you repeated quietly but resolutely.

“You know he can’t though!” Thor said, heat of his emotions cracking through at last and the lightning that was once at a distant struck much closer. The skies behind you began to respond in kind, a deep and ominous churning rolling closer to you. “And the only thing you’ve done is make this more painful for yourself and I!”

“I have a claim on him just as you do,” you said calmly, but the air around you began to cool. The sky above you was fast darkening, clouds beginning to tumble in increasingly deep hues of greys and blacks and purples, a powerful fury gathering.

Thor’s eyes flitted between two things unseen in the distance between the pair of you, his mind reaching for a decision on how to solve this mess.

“Then he splits his time between your realm and mine,” he said after a moment, looking at you with a brow raised, anger temporarily paused as a new solution was put forth, though neither his storm or yours abated.

“What?” you asked dumbly, taken off balance by the proposed solution since it wasn’t one you had considered.

“You and I both have a claim, so we get him equal parts of the year,” Thor offered, watching and waiting for your response. The blonde god was framed by a threatening background, waiting on this one last thread of peace to hold the two of you together.

For the first time you glanced to Bucky, looking at him as he looked to you.

He was also framed by the dark wicked colour of your realm, feeding and growing off of your silent call of wrath to rain down at your command. But Bucky’s ocean blue eyes were steady and trusting. He didn’t speak to give you an opinion on this option, so your eyes looked off in the distance, thinking this through.

You had always thought of him with you as being the ultimate goal, but you knew right now it had to be keeping him safe. With Pierce just several feet away you couldn’t let Bucky fall back into his hands. Six months here in the Underworld with Bucky would give you more than enough time to find what you needed to convince Thor and keep Bucky with you permanently.

You could agree with this to avoid a battle now and yet have no real intention of giving him up when the time actually came. By that point you’d have what you would need to secure both Bucky’s place here and Pierce’s lies.

“Then he’s mine for the next six months--” you spoke quickly and brashly, not even able to finish the thought before Thor’s anger was unleashed, hitting loud and hard.

“You have _no_ say, Y/N!” he shouted, face reddening. “You created this disaster, knowing full well what would happen! So you _will_ suffer the consequences of it.”

Again your heart seized, but this time not in guilt or sadness but pure, cold rage.

The temperature around you dropped further, as a rustling in the trees that surrounded the border wall began to vibrate out. It was soft and erratic at first, but began to grow.

“You are not taking him,” you said icily, fists clenched as Cerberus’s growl started up again, a low baseline rumbling through the ground.

Frost began at your feet, covering the little gravel pebbles before spreading out to cover the ground and trees and black bars of the gate.

“And if you try,” you continued, blinking slow and showing the shift of ice blue of your eyes against the backdrop of a now near black sky, crackling and snapping in the air around you as power flooded your veins. “I will use every power and creature I have at my disposal to _stop_ you.”

The threat was responded to as a blinding waterfall of white light struck Thor from the heavens. Like lightning, it struck the earth and vanished in a flash. Where once stood Thor in a maroon suit jacket and grey v-neck shirt, now suddenly he was dressed in silver plated armour, a flowing red cape trailing behind him in the wind of the storms and weighty might of Mjolnir held tight in his grip.

Within the Underworld a crack boomed out like the earth splitting open, black shadows raining down from the heavens over you and leaving just as fast as Thor’s lightning. One moment you were clothed in your usual fair, and the next you stepped out from the shadows that disappeared like smoke, dressed like the Commander of the Dead and Queen of the Underworld you were.

Black that gleamed like onyx scales covered your legs and arms, connecting to the intricately detailed bodice that was plated with black and lined with gold, covering you to your neck. Black lace woven not from thread but chainmail flowed out from your hips behind you. The sleek black metal crowning your brow sported two imposing horns emerging from it, bowing out before curving back. In your hand was a two-pronged gold spear, of equal fortitude as the hammer in Thor’s hand.

It was an ancient and striking shift, the sudden change into a commanding presence whose primeval and unadulterated power crackled around you. Black bolts of electricity zapped between to the two prongs of your spear, ready to lash out and cut down an enemy into pieces of screaming torment.

Immediately a flash of black dashed from your right as Cerberus ran with blinding speed. He stopped with the spray of gravel underfoot as he moved to block Bucky from view of the two gods. His stance was ready to pounce and three heads replaced the one, teeth bared and sounding ear shattering barks into the wind protect Bucky.

His call brought forth a rustling and clashing, growing louder and louder still as tens then hundreds of yips and growls and hollers flooded the Underworld behind the veil of the forest.

It was the sound of gnashing and clashing of a thousand sets of teeth somewhere hidden in the darkness of the trees. In the deep of the woods there were flashes of creatures, with scarred limbs and bloody teeth and hungry eyes all converging and crowded in the cover of dark, waiting and thrashing.

But Thor also had back-up at his side, with gods and goddess emerging from the black SUVs by the droves to stand with him. Among them, your friends.

It was a ballsy move, but Steve clad in a dark navy tactical suit with shoulders square, walked out in front of Pierce and blocking his view to you and Bucky, shield in hand. Though his eyes remained on you the defiance on his face was directed at the enemy behind him.

Tony was there in a suit of red and gold metal with his face uncovered for the moment, shock and hurt in his eyes. It was a weary and pleading kind of hurt, begging you not to engage as he had watched this unfold from behind tinted windows.

Natasha stood to the side of Thor, with a frown playing on the edge of her lips. If you had time to wish it, you would have wanted not to reunite under such circumstances.

“You know what’s going to happen,” Natasha warned, almost sounding regretful. “Do you really want to punch your way out of this?”

“It won’t only me fighting,” you said ominously, with brow raised above blue ice eyes.

“You would tear apart my world for _him_?” Thor asked, voice quiet though his hammer stayed firm in his grip, taking a step forward in challenge. “You would destroy your _friends_? You would destroy your _own realm_ for him?”

“Yes!” you seethed, black lightning shooting across the sky and touching down the ground behind you, the dark blasts booming out with each word you spoke. “Everything and anything for him!”

As you stepped forward, ready to throw open the gates and abandon all reason or thought of anyone outside of your love, a hand clasped around your wrist.

You looked up to Bucky, coming up with his back to the gate as he looked to you. It was those same eyes he had before leaving the house: resolute but loving. There was something else in there with them though. And it looked like fear.

“No, you won’t,” he said softly.

The crawling and creeping and gnashing of teeth from the forest didn’t stop, the deep chill didn’t dissipate, the determination in your eyes didn’t waver.

“You’re not leaving,” you whispered, voice colder and harder than arctic ice. 

“Y/N, I can’t let you destroy everything over me,” he said, pleading in a whisper. “I’ve done enough of that. And I’ve had _enough_ of war and bloodshed. I can’t live through more, not if I can stop it.”

He looked behind him to the gods holding still and waiting to see what would happen, before back to you.

“It’s only for a short time,” he tried to reason, but you just didn’t have ears to hear it. Not now.

“But Pierce--” you snapped.

“Thor isn’t stupid,” he said. “He’ll keep Pierce away and I’ll have Steve and the others on that side looking out for me.”

“I could make you stay,” you said darkly, breathing billowing out of you in your fury. “I could lock you up and not give you a choice.”

You could control him. Leave him without any other choice or option.

... Just like Pierce had done to him.

The thought made your stomach turn and eyes start to burn, hating yourself instantly for even thinking it. That loathing started a quaking somewhere in you, unraveling your stone hard determination. 

Your motivation was to love and protect him, but that thought was too far, too much. The power flowing through you demanded decisive, unrelenting, and brutal action to do so by _any_ means necessary, but your heart choked at the thought.

“Let me protect you this once, Y/N,” he said, hand settling lightly on your throat, his thumb brushing across your jaw. “Let me help _protect_ our realm. You’re not in this alone anymore, and I won’t let you destroy what you’ve made.”

“Please,” you whispered, eyes hard but voice wavering. “Don’t _do_ this.”

But he shook his head, hair moving around his face.

“I’ll come back,” He leaned in, gently kissing your temple with the lightest of touches. His lips lingered, hovering above your skin and breathing you in a moment. “I’ll never be able to stay away from you. And I’ll miss you every moment I’m gone… But I have to go. We both know that.”

This wasn’t losing or winning, but a compromise. And in a second it broke your heart to pieces, shattering you and crumbling you to dust. The ground shook and tree trunks cracked and split with the sudden ice cold frost that burst out like a whip from you.

You couldn’t speak, couldn’t imagine this really happening, as Bucky leaned down, slowly and softly kissing your cheek before turning around, taking any warmth left in your realm or soul with him.

Thor nodded to Bucky as he walked to the gate, curt but with respect. You stood still, face hard and chest heaving as you tried and failed to face this reality.

“You are herein ordered to stay out of my realm, Y/N,” Thor said to you grimly, your grip on your spear tightening. “And I mean you and anyone else of the Underworld. No one is allowed to enter here without direct permission from I alone.”

The sound that came from you could only be described as a growl; all teeth and pain and fury. It was drowned out by the black lightning splitting the earth of the Underworld over and over again, striking the black ground from black murderous skies.

When Bucky reached the gate he stood still, waiting with his back to you.

“Open it, Y/N,” Bucky said gently, turning but not looking you in the eye.

You would wonder later if he had given in and looked up to you, if he wouldn’t have had the strength to walk away from you. If the rage and heartbreak in you would have kept him with you.

But it didn’t matter, because his eyes stayed down. And after an endless moment, where tears threatened to form and spill wishing he would look to you, your spear clanged to the ground with a deep thud. After that your fist clenched and the black metal bars opened.

“I’ll be back,” he repeated quietly with his head down before stepping through the gate and out of the Underworld.

You could barely watch but also couldn’t turn away as he walked up to Thor, shielded from Pierce by Steve and Natasha.

Your fists stayed clenched and began to shake, the emotions spilling out and into your realm as the ground itself began to shake with you.

One fist was as empty as you felt your gold blood dripping down over your palms, your nails cutting deep into your skin.

The other held the clear little coin with one lone white flower suspended in it.

It was what Bucky had given you not an hour before. Back when there were declarations of love and devotion and heated tenderness in your life.

And as a bright white flash filled the air, taking the gods and goddesses away in one fell swoop of light and electricity, that little token was all of Bucky you had left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super shitty week, I'm sorry if this isn't up to snuff. I'll edit/improve it soon but I wanted to give you something.


	15. Where You Are

_You still felt it. The brush of his lips on your temple. The feel of his thumb moving across your jawline. You could see the look in his blue eyes, caring and pained and determined. You could still see the back of his head as he turned away and left you._

Screwing your eyes shut you slammed open the boardroom door with a crack, sounding just as loud as the black electric bolts of lightning flashing down from the raging sky outside. The rich brown wood of the door almost snapped in half as it struck the wall, all but one figure inside jumping in fright at the sudden sound.

Hela barely glanced up from where she stood, surrounded by files and nymphs and empty coffee cups, all of which went flying around as you stormed in. Your Goddess of Witchcraft and Necromancy simply waved her hand as she took a sip of coffee, immune to both your mood and the dropped temperature sending frost across the windows. The assistants filling the room needing no more encouragement than her dismissive gesture as they scuttled around you as fast as they could, retreating down the hall to the sanctuary of the elevator and lower floors.

“I saw the storm,” Hela said, looking up from the work in her hand. She had on a crooked smile and devilish look in her eyes, clearly enjoying this turn of events that was rather outside your character (but certainly in line with hers). “Felt the edge of war in the air and I was waiting from the signal from you to join the fray. Was rather let down you didn’t invite me to play, Y/N.”

_You could still feel his hand on your wrist, holding you back. You could still see the back of his head as he turned away and left you here. Alone._

You bit your tongue from screaming as the howl in your soul began clawing up your throat, images and feelings of him threatening to shatter you where you stood.

_Get under control, Y/N!_ , you shouted at yourself, sneering as you could feel the blood beating in your veins like it was desperate to escape back to him.

Some part of you knew that you needed to step back. To not let yourself rage until there was nothing left of Thor, the realms, or yourself. You needed to be _smarter_ and stealthier to get Bucky back, no matter what. Giving in to these feelings wouldn’t win this; they had him now making everything far more complicated and completely out of your control. You needed to reign it in a control yourself, at least.

Outside was still a cyclone of black lightning like spears hitting the ground before snapping into nothing, hail like rocks starting to fall and crack against the ground and the windows of your skyscraping headquarters. Until he was back you doubted there would be calm grey skies in the Underworld, but you could and _would_ calm yourself enough to think clearly.

Hela eyed you and your outfit- black horns, glinting armour, blistering cold and all- and waited as you did you best not to break yourself or the world apart with bitter, heart-shattering, breath-taking loss.

You swallowed, turning to Hela, forcing yourself to portray some kind of together demeanour, knowing she wouldn’t be one to sympathize even if she knew about Bucky.

“Thor was here,” you said lowly and through your teeth, as she would definitely understand what that would mean.

Instantly her face cringed, lip curling and shaking her long black hair.

Hela loved a decisive rule, to be sure. Through the many years together she admired your ability to command and get things done. You, of course, had counsel and help, but you weren’t exactly one to beat around a problem, choosing when needed to make an executive and hard decision without delay.

Thor ran things differently, choosing instead to take in input from the team he had built around him. It resulted in many, if not most, of the decisions made as a team effort, respecting the views and wishes of his inner, trusted circle.

Some might call that fair and diplomatic, but Hela called it weak.

“Ugh, don’t tell me,” she exaggerated, rolling her eyes. “He wants us to pull out from his realm, effectively stopping us from looking into Pierce and his dealings. Did anyone even bother to remind him we have _the dead_ still walking around that has to be dealt with?”

She pulled out her phone, punched in a number and held it to her ear.

“Get everyone back here, immediately,” Hela snapped to the nymph on the other end, not bothering with a friendly “hello”. “Living realm is officially off-limits for Underworlders… Yes, obviously… No, _obviously_ not… Just get it done, and get it done _now_.”

She hung up, half throwing the phone on the table. War would have definitely been her preference over having her hands tied.

“So, that’s it? We’re done?” she asked icily, bristling at you having given in to Thor.

“No,” you said, eyes darkening and jaw clenching. “I came to tell you we’re decidedly going against Thor’s wishes. I’m going over there and _ending_ this, and I’m bringing the Wraiths with me.”

The smile Hela gave you was all sharp teeth and no joy. There was a lust for war and smug gleam in her eyes, loving every bit of this. 

Being the goddess she was, Hela could easily pull the shades that served as a small and deadly Underworld army, known as the Wraiths, to your side. Invisible within the living realm, you could make them corporeal when the time came. You couldn’t risk any gods or goddesses, the Wraiths unkillable, as they were already dead and under your command.

With Hela’s “no love lost” attitude towards Thor, you knew this was not in any way a problem for her. You were hardly pleased- to put it _grossly_ mildly- with the turn of events, absolutely hating every minute of this, but you didn’t have a choice and she would happily comply, Thor’s command be damned.

_You could still feel the heat of his body, washing over you with sweet warmth. You could still see the back of his head as he turned away and left you here. Alone. Again._

Your fist quickly clutched tighter onto the clear white flower coin in your grip, holding it as tightly as you wanted to hold him right now. Your mind had been racing, spurred on by the pain in your heart and torment in your soul of letting Bucky go. You let him protect you and this realm, but he wasn’t here now. He couldn’t stop you from doing something probably even more stupid, like sneaking into the living realm to get him back and stop Pierce.

“And,” she started, pulling you out of your dark spiral. She crossed her arms casually and watched you as her eyes hid something in their green depths. “I assume you’re going to get _Bucky_ back?”

That shocked your mind still a moment, tongue-tied for a few seconds too long to appear innocent of the implication.

“What do you mean?” you asked coolly to the goddess, your brow arching high.

Hela gave you a knowingly obvious look that verged on sour, a little affronted that you would think her oblivious to this.

“ _Please_ ,” she said, sounding offended. “You think we have operatives out there looking into Pierce and somehow didn’t realize that _Bucky_ \- the implementer of all this chaos- was missing? And that just so _happened_ to be on the day you decided to without real reason shut yourself away and leave this to the rest of us to manage? You really think that I’m that stupid, do you.”

You could feel your shoulders dropping and the warmth of defeat colour your face. Yeah, you probably weren’t as stealthy as you had thought.

You didn’t respond, only gave a slight jerk of your head and an eyebrow raise. No need to confirm the obvious here. But Hela just smiled, in a weirdly proud way.

“Your first secret lover, huh?” she said, clearly approving for absolutely no reason you could discern. You had thought everyone would have been outraged, thinking you wouldn’t be able to deal with a fight on both sides. “You should have come to me; I could have given you some tips.”

“ _You_ have a secret lover?” you prodded slowly, actually curious for a moment.

She shrugged, waving the question away. “Too many to keep track of their names.”

You paused, your feet shifting slightly as you weighed your next words carefully, teetering on the edge of whether you should voice them.

But Veronica had submitted the proper documentation on your behalf this morning before Thor arrived, and the record keepers would sift through it soon enough. It would be common knowledge soon enough.

“And if you must know,” you started, tone even and guarded as you watched the goddess for her reaction, the black storm through the window as her back. “He’s not my _lover_ , exactly.”

She scoffed, leaning her hip against the table and looked at her black manicured nails.

“So you held him for days and didn’t get down and dirty with him?” she said. “Pity, really. You’ve been so tightly wound for years, I thought it was about time.”

Your expression broke a moment, giving her a sour look, before settling back into something more neutral, bracing for her reaction.

“ _Technically_ , he is my lover,” Hela triumphantly smiled at that. “But more to the point I’m trying to make here, he’s my… well, husband, actually.”

That knocked the look of her face and breath from her lungs.

Hela’s whole body frozen, her casual and fluid movements stopping short in the span of a heartbeat. She leaned against the desk, suspended in stunned silence as you watched her, waiting for her to respond. With just the two of you in the expansive boardroom the silence rung heavy, with the storm outside the only echo to be heard.

After a moment Hela’s chin dropped and her eyes went hard.

“You _married_ him?!” she hissed, quiet in the empty room as though not to let anyone else hear.

“Yes, I did,” you said simply.

“You _married_ him,” she repeated.

“Again, yes.”

“So the God of _Spring_ \- of all utterly useless abilities- is now _King_ of the Underworld?”

You looked outside, mind turning just as the near-black storm clouds did before looking back to her.

“I suppose I haven’t thought of him with that title,” you admitted. “But yes, he is.”

“Gods help me,” Hela muttered, her mourning words punctuated with her hand smacking her forehead before turning back to you with jaw clenched. “Of _course_ you wouldn’t think of it like that. Why would _that_ at all matter, particularly now that he comes with a whole other level of power?”

“When you have the most powerful title, titles don’t mean much,” you said, failing at defending yourself.

Because she was right.

Bucky was King of the Underworld now.

_And I just let him get taken away like some weak, useless figurehead_ , you thought bitterly to yourself, that deceptive, self-loathing voice inside you refusing to stay quiet. A roll of anger pulsed through you, shutting your eyes tightly for a moment.

“Yeah, well, to _Pierce_ it does,” Hela continued, casting you another angry look. “And he’s clearly trying to get on top. The value he seeks is in strength and power. He’ll be pushing to control Bucky now all the more.”

“He _is_ all about sovereign rule,” A black bolt of thunder struck nearby, the skies as dark as your expression at the thought of Pierce. “And he wants to be king of the mountain, doesn’t he.”

“Before you smite the people on your side, remember he’s been playing them all for years and this will’ve forced his hand,” she pointed out. “It might either make him slip up or maybe he’s all the more prepared for it so be smart about this, Y/N.”

Hence why you were here talking to Hela at all. The stupid, love-sick part of you wanted to fly through the gate on the back of Cerberus and not stop until your spear were sunken into Pierce’s heart and Bucky at your side.

It had taken a _lot_ of self-control to turn around go deeper into the Underworld to end up here.

“He’ll have to do something before Thor can dig too deep, so I don’t have much time.” Your nails found their way into the leather of one of many desk chairs as you gripped it.

Hela gave a “hrmph”.

“Doing this alone and keeping the fun to yourself huh,” Again, wanting to be in the middle of the fray and struggle. “So what’re you going to do?”

“I told you, no one is allowed in the living realm,” you shrugged, dark gleam in your eyes.

“So, we’re going in,” she said, knowing better. “Lovely. Could go for stretching my legs and powers.”

“I’m not risking anyone else,” you stated firmly, shutting down that thought. “You’re too valuable and I won’t hear an argument otherwise. Hold the fort here til I get back.”

“Anything for my queen and _king_ now,” Hela said exaggeratingly, giving a mock bow of her head and deference wave of her hand. Despite her mocking attitude, you would definitely owe Hela to stay and continue to clean up the mess here.

Before you respond, she had her phone to her ear, hand on hip while she waited impatiently for person on the other end to pick up. As soon as she did, Hela slapped the phone down on the desk and put it on speaker.

“Hela? Why are you calling?” came Nat’s voice, spoken lowly on the other end of the phone.

“Because we’re in _hell_ and you will be too, trust me” Hela rolled her eyes again and passed you the phone.

You sighed, taking it. The chaos in the Underworld had yet to be reigned in, so rightly you would need help on the other side.

If you could get it.

* * *

 

The nightlife here was as vibrant as the city was during the day, crowds of people shedding their workwear for something tighter, lower cut, and flashier. Heels clacked against the pavement, taxis honked as they sped by, and laughter spilled out on the lit-up streets with the deep base of the club music. It was bright and lively and gleaming; not at all like the Underworld you left behind.

Nat had led you down a dark and deserted alleyway, red-bricked buildings stretching up on either side of you, blocking out the moon completely. It opened up on the other end to a quieter but not as deserted back street, the high life of the main downtown core at your back. The music from it and laughter filling it did not fully disappear, but the crowds certainly had, giving you both some breathing room.

To anyone else, it would appear that Natasha was simply a woman walking alone on a lively Friday night, perhaps to meet friends at her favourite bar. Hand in the pockets of her leather coat, her gaze stayed ahead, movements quick but casual.

“He won’t try anything,” she said, voice too low for the minimal passersby to hear, mouth only moving the smallest amount as she spoke.

Walking beside her, you weren’t looking like you were going out on the town in the living realm, but for war. But you weren’t going to be looked at at all, actually. 

The crown of horns atop your head wasn’t merely for intimidation, but rather a magical means of invisibility. When desired, it shrouded you in veil of invisibility, keeping any and all eyes from seeing you.

Natasha waited for a couple to walk by before speaking again.

“We have Pierce under watch practically all the time,” she muttered lowly. “And with your intel into the others he may be working with, we have almost everyone covered.”

“That means _nothing_ when we don’t know his plan, Nat,” you whispered, the pair of you matching strides as you passed by closed shops and the odd loiterer on the stoops of a convenience store. “I won’t trust any of this while he can still trigger Bucky and has a damn hit squad out there at his command.”

“He’s not alone, ever,” Nat said, smartly not using his name since she first picked you up after stashing your car on the side of the road on the edge of town. The sky had darkened and a cold snap hit, black sparks zapping around you in your fury. “We’ve segmented our core group into sections, so we’re not all in the same spot if something were to happen. Pierce won’t be able to get to him, or take us down at once.”

Nat took you down another dark alley with inky black shadows covering you both. Your footsteps gritted to a stop with hers in front of what looked like a back entry into a bar.

“We’re in constant contact with each other at all times and we’ve _got_ this, Y/N,” she insisted, her eyes searching for you in the dark, just about getting you spot on. 

The wind that tunneled down the alley picked up her hair, shaking the red curls around her face as she waited for your response. When none came she sighed, cracking open the rusted metal door with a hard pull.

The warm glow for the bar spilled out into the alley, briefly lighting up the dark, dirty space. Nat’s foot held open the door for you slightly longer than necessary for someone walking in alone as the pair of you entered.

But she didn’t really step into the bar paper, sticking back by the doorway before the room opened up. It had a long bar counter on one side, a couple people saddled up to it and sitting alone. The main floor of the bar was basic: wood floors and tables and chairs, a TV in one corner no-one was even watching, and no windows to speak of.

It was hazy with smoke though no one was smoking, the air hanging thick with the fog of booze and dreariness.

You saw Steve there, the blonde facing your direction as he nursed a beer dripping with condensation. You expected him here, expecting to meet with him and Natasha to talk. But you didn’t know someone else was there too. Steve was talking to the other person, who was sitting across from him and whose back was to you. 

And as recognition struck you like a lash across your body, the stale sight and smell of the bar for a brief moment fell completely away.

Your chest tightened, constricting your heart to near death, a burning rush of heat hitting you and raking down your skin.

“Tell me this wasn’t a bad idea,” Nat whispered to you, concern edging into her voice for the first time you could remember. “Tell me you aren’t going to do something stupid.”

Bucky sat with his back to you, a whiskey in his metal hand. His brown hair was tucked behind his ears, and from the bit of his profile you could see, his face was drawn and ashen.

But he was alive. He was himself. He was _here_ , with you.

The sharp inhale in was enough for Nat to zero in on where you were, speaking quickly before your body could jump start again.

“He is safe, Y/N,” she said quickly. “But Pierce is still out there. We can’t do both jobs of protecting Bucky _and_ finding Pierce. And you can’t be seen, not by Bucky or anyone.”

You couldn’t breathe for a moment or a lifetime, you couldn’t tell which as you watched him.

“The second he sees you, he won’t let you go,” Natasha warned. “That much I know. And I know you well enough that you wouldn’t have been able to focus on the task at hand until you saw for yourself that he was okay. But if you show yourself, Pierce will find out within the night that you’re here and our ability to protect him _and_ your cover will be blown.”

“He’s here,” you half-breathed, half-hissed, a sudden fury hitting you hard. “He’s _here_ , Natasha, in some seedy downtown bar of all places? Why in _hell_ don’t you have him guarded and safe in the tower?!”

“He’s not a prisoner, Y/N,” she countered quietly. “Would you have felt better if I brought you to see him in a cell, under lock and key? Hardly.”

You knew there was no way she could have won; you would have been outraged by either. The only calming option was to have him with you in the Underworld, but as that wasn’t happening right now no solution would have eased the anger it flared up.

You didn’t say a word to Natasha, walking forward as though pulled to Bucky like a magnet. You skin tingled and muscles clenched, a wanting deep within your body and soul needing to be close to your love.

As you approached, silent at the grave, the familiar scent of him broke through the smell of the room, floral and sweet and sad. You could see now those minute details of him that you loved so much. 

The angle of his jaw. The dark shadow of his stubble. The curve of his lashes. The intense and bright flecks of blue in those endlessly deep eyes.

You stood beside him invisible, looking down to the only person in your world you could ever care for, memorizing every detail of him all over again.

Hovering just above his arm, you fingers glided over him just a fraction from touching him. Your fingertips traveled from his hand holding his whiskey, up his arm to his shoulder. You moved to stroke your hand over his cheek, so close to touching him you could feel his warmth, the sensation of it moving down to settle in your soul just as you had longed for it.

His free hand pulled through his chestnut hair, parting it haphazardly to the side. A bitter torment was held in your chest as you tucked a stray strand lightly back behind his ear.

It burned your mind to think it, but you knew Natasha was right.

It hurt like hell, but she was right. 

You couldn’t have him back yet. Not yet. It was too dangerous and however selfishly you wanted to reveal yourself to him you couldn’t risk exposing him more than he already was. Word would get to Thor and worst of all, Pierce, and not only would you be cast out permanently, but Thor’s trust in Steve and the others would be shot. It would leave Bucky unprotected and that just couldn’t happen.

So like a bullet to the heart, you silently stepped back, just as there was a shift in Bucky. You couldn't see it, but his brow furrowed and look in his eyes moved from dull to dangerously intent, the ocean blue swimming with an awareness he didn’t immediately understand. His head shot up, looking around the bar around him, turning his body to out to the few, quiet patrons.

Steve sat up a little taller, looking around with Bucky, unsure of what his friend was seeing or sensing.

The moment Bucky caught Natasha still standing between the edge of the bar and black hallway, Bucky bolted upright, the sound of his chair scraping against the floorboard shattering the gloomy calm of the room.

He walked to her in a few hasty long strides, bracingly grabbing her by the upper arms and lifting her back into the darkness. The crack of her back against the wood-paneling snapped out as he slammed her against the wall, his breath heaving in his chest.

When he spoke it was a low rasp, gravelly and pained and threatening

“ _Where is she_?!”

But you were already gone, heading out to locate the catalyst to this chaos.

* * *

 

“You’ll be safe, you know,” came Steve’s voice behind him, hands in his pockets and leaning against the doorframe as he looked out to his friend, standing alone in the night air.

The sky was deep and filled with white pinpricks of stars, looking so similar but _feeling_ so different from the last time he was here. Bucky looked up to it as though with new eyes now. What he once saw as black looked liked an inky navy now, the shadows of this place not as dark, the lights from the city below too bright.

When he had come back to his own mind it had looked like freedom; now it looked like a cell.

“We know he can’t be trusted, and we’re not going to let him take control of you again,” Steve continued, sounding firm and reassuring.

Bucky looked behind his shoulder a moment, before turning back to look out from his spot on the small balcony to the lights below.

This tower was a pillar within the city, stretching up and up with the busy life and bustle of the world far below. But up this high in the home of the gods and the sanctuary- or prison- of his room, Bucky felt all the more still and all the more lonely.

He didn’t want to be up here, removed and isolated. He wanted to feel the earth under him and feel you against him. He wanted to wake up in your bed, your skin flushed with his heat and your body under his. He wanted the shaking flutter of your eyelids when you blinked up to him, a look on your face that was so filled with indescribable love he would fall for you a thousand times and a thousand more.

He wanted your stubbornness. Wanted your fighting spirit. Wanted your confidence in your abilities and nervousness in your feelings. He wanted to make you feel loved. To make you feel free. To make you feel joy, and pleasure, and contentment, and fire.

But he felt none of that. Because you weren’t here.

He had thought he felt you earlier, in that bar Steve had dragged him out too. He had a whiskey and sat opposite his friend, feeling like little pieces of his soul were draining away drop by drop with every sip. The longer he was away from you the greyer and more painful the world became.

But he thought he had sensed something. Had been adamantly sure of it at the time. He felt the air around him change, cooled to something familiar and gentle. It carried on it the smell of champagne and stardust and the morning frost that clung to soft petals before the sun could melt it away.

It had been _you_ , and not just in his memories as he thought of your scent surrounding him like he had since he left. He had thought of your breath on his skin, hesitant before the first time you kissed. He thought of your hand in his, entwined and feeling like home. Of your body on his, feeling like heaven. Of your sparkling laughter. Your teasing voice. The way you moaned when he moved inside of you. The way you looked when he walked away like you have cracked in two.

But in that bar and for that moment he knew it had to be you, that you had to be near. Seeing Natasha held back and her expression suspiciously guarded he snapped, slamming the redhaired goddess against the wall as he tried to hold back the welling burn of tears as equal amounts of fury and longing sprung up in him.

But like the lightest of spring winds, you had seemed to disappear in thin air.

“One of us will be here,” Steve said. “Just across the hall. Someone you can trust. Sam’s taking the first shift, so he’ll be close if you need something.”

Bucky merely nodded, wanting to say a thank-you to his friend, but the words didn't find their way through the hollow burn in his soul.

Steve had procured the whole floor, the security as intense as Bucky had seen, with Tony’s state of the art tech and S.H.I.E.L.D operatives stationed at the elevators and exits. Steve had even gone to the trouble of bringing Bucky’s things around, some old comforts of his that he didn’t find all too comforting anymore. Not since he had come alive in your arms, secured and whole.

Steve silently walked back through the apartment, stopping when something caught his eye. He paused by the little oval coffee table, a small white pot filled with once waxy green leaves and tiny orange buds. Steve thought it would help, knowing Bucky didn't prefer being up so high in a building like this, to have some things in here of the earth, growing and lively. The plant was dead now, brittle between Steve’s fingers as he felt it, a frown creasing his mouth.

Steve’s eyes looked back through the open glass doorway.

“You love her?” Steve asked quietly.

Bucky didn’t answer right away, that question a peculiar one. Because never once did he ask himself that. He never had too. He knew from the beginning he loved you.

Well, he had been a lot of other things too, not just in love.

Gods, when he first met you? You were a cataclysm to his cracked, broken psyche, with compassionate shining eyes and soft tender smile no one had ever offered him before. Like the stars themselves you were breathtaking in that moment, shining and luminous, with your black gown flowing around you like the night sky. When you walked right up to him he had been so damn nervous. A goddess like you, ethereal and powerful, approaching _him_?

But you had talked to him like you were curious and not afraid. Afraid like everyone else had been, even Steve who didn’t recognize the person Bucky had been twisted into. Everyone else was wary, but you? You joked with him. You teased him, made him comfortable in his own skin, if even for one blissful moment. 

When you had handed him that glass fo whiskey he paused, wondering if maybe he had been thrown off the balcony and was now dead, standing in the Underworld with you, a dark angel who in a moment made him forget his pain.

In the days following he strung himself up with a noose of his own making, agonizing over wanting to see you again. He wanted to send you flowers, to make you believe you deserved them, the denial in your voice like a crushing blow when you sad you didn’t deserve them. It was he who didn’t deserve you, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about you but selfishly wanted you to think of him too. 

But you would have probably forgotten him the moment you rejoined the party that night. With a whole realm of beings devoted to you, he was simply one more. What could have meant to someone like you?

But he couldn’t help it. Your white flowers bloomed up all around him, covering his room with thousands of delicate little petals at the mere thought of you. It was like _you_ were the spring in his life, making flowers grow and bloom again and again. It had made him ache in places he had never felt before, in a way he couldn’t understand. He just had _missed_ you so desperately.

Not until he spent that first night with you in the Underworld did that end. The aching had stopped, filling Bucky with that cool, soothing feel, a purr in his chest and soul at being so close to you. 

He had never been so sure of anything in his life, his love for you. When you railed and stood against it, believing he would wither in your presence Bucky couldn’t understand it. He _thrived_ with you, and somehow you weren’t allowing yourself to see that.

But unwillingly he had destroyed that. He took your trust and soft touches and eviscerated all of it. The days after he had been sent away from you, kicked out of the Underworld after striking up chaos? After hurting and beating you? He writhed and burned and died, over and over, day after day.

The memory of seeing you pinned beneath him, tears in your eyes and torment in your voice. The betrayal of his action dripped down with your blood down his fists, but the former couldn’t be washed off. It brought him to the brink of a darkness he had never been to, not at the worst times. No one could broach it, no friend could starve it off. Nightmares wracked him, pain engulfed him, and the loss of you crippled him to his core. It was all his fault and it nearly ended him.

But his love for you broke the guilt. That need for you wore him down, crushing him and bring him back to you. To be close again. To try and somehow repair this. Any of it. Just to try and make it right again.

He expected you to hate him, as everyone must have. To finally be afraid of him, to think of him only as the monster he fought with inside of himself.

But in the day that followed, you treated him with love.

You hated it, lashing out against it. You hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t wanted it in your life, taking you over and leaving you weak. Weak like Bucky was for you from the beginning. It was like realizing you were suddenly only half a person, and it was _terrifying_ to think of losing the other half of your whole once you found it. It was easier to push it away, to deny the feelings and possibility of heartbreak.

Bucky understood that, but he also knew that he would always be there for you, to be that other half. Because you were his. And he waited until he could show you exactly what he needed to from that moment you walked onto that balcony that night.

Love. 

All-consuming. Deep. Complete. Reckless.

His life since had been the happiest he had ever known or ever deserved to know.

“I think I’ve always loved her,” Bucky replied to Steve’s question, just as hushed. The only thing he wanted to talk about in the world was you, and it brought him both the most joy and the most pain possible. “I just had to meet her first.”

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Steve said kindly, continuing in a soft way. “I’m sure the wedding was beautiful too, Buck. Wish I could’ve been there.”

A different jab struck Bucky there, bring him out of the spiral of his own doing, turning himself around as he looked at his friend with a sad half-smile on.

“Me too,” Bucky said, too drained and missing you to find the right words to apologize. “I just… There wasn’t time and...”

“It’s okay, I get it,” Steve said. Bucky watched him a moment before believing him, a look of understanding flashing in his light blue eyes as he shrugged in a small, good-natured way. “She was protecting you. And obviously there was more than just protection as a deciding factor, by the looks of it. But we won’t let her down, Buck. You’ll be safe here.”

Not happy.

Not whole.

“Yeah, safe,” Bucky replied, crossing his arms.

Supposedly.

Despite all the pain that riddled him like bullets, at the very least, _you_ wouldn’t be hurt. Your realm would be intact. Or at least not any more damaged than he had already made it.

He _couldn’t_ storm into your life and just take everything from you. He knew he would challenge you, and love you, and give you the world. It was that last part that had been tested. He couldn’t give you the world- give you what you deserved- if he let you destroyed it because of him.

So he resolved to wait here, under the protection of Steve and his friends, under the hope that Thor would find out about Pierce, under the yearning in his split-in-half soul that you wouldn't hate him for trying to spare you more pain.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Steve said with a sigh, not wanting to leave but knowing Bucky wasn’t looking for company unless it was you. “Goodnight, Buck.”

“‘Night,” Bucky said back, turning as Steve left, eyes back on the navy-black skies, quiet and alone.

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours that he looked out into the night, thinking of you. Of every moment with you. Every piece and detail of you.

As he looked out, Bucky started to feel something. It was a feeling akin to the one he felt that the bar that night, like a chill settling down his spine, prickling his skin with familiar goosebumps.

Now, Bucky knew what a winter chill was, the bitter and steely feel. This was nothing like that cold at all.

This cold in the air felt like _you_. It was that indescribable temperature that was somewhere between icy and pleasant, like a soothing, refreshing feel in the best way. It was one Bucky had come to know well.

Touching you was like dipping his hands in a cool, clear lake. Kissing you was a sweet and lusciously frosty ice cream on his tongue, rich and smooth and left him begging for another taste. Your presence by his side as though he was standing in a shaded valley in evening, calm and serene and perfect.

As he looked out, he felt the temperature drop. It felt like _you_ , not harsh or bitter, but revitalizing and electric at the same time. He felt his heart beat faster and breath hitch in his throat at the familiarity; his body and heart and soul longing for it.

Bucky didn’t know if this was another trick, just his screwed up head playing more tricks on him, or if this was real. If it was, he knew he couldn’t turn away from you. He could be strong once and walked away from you momentarily to prevent all-out war, but he couldn’t be the cause of the raging anguish in your eyes. Not again. If you were near, he wouldn’t be able to let you go this time.

_Please be real…_ please _be here, Y/N..._


	16. Dead Men Walking

“Take care of my love, alright my darling?” you whispered softly, voice just barely floating within the dark night. “Keep him safe for me. For us.”

Cerberus stood beside you, nose dipped down to nuzzle into your shoulder. You smiled, pulling him in and kissing the top of his fluffy, murderous head. It was the only smile you had given since your wedding.

That look from you was enough for a sudden breezy wag of his tail and you didn’t have time stop a big, wet tongue licking up your cheek in confirmation. He down looked at you with those big, almost glowing eyes. You gave him a hug, fingers petting through his thick black fur, and your smile turning sad. 

Cerberus clearly was happy to see Bucky and was about too, while you had to stay behind. It made your heart stutter, bound and constricted in a vice of pain.

“Go on, ’Berus,” you whispered, voice as thin and light as paper, wavering on the edge of grief-stricken.

In a flash Cerberus jumped to the brown bricked wall of the building beside you. The alley didn’t hold much space and despite his size, he didn’t need it too. 

Cerberus’s long thick claws dug easily into the brick of the building, clawing up the side as though with ease, flecks of debris shattering down around you with hollow clicks.

He was all too eager to see Bucky again, the draw to protect both the Queen and King of the Underworld nothing if not undeniably strong. And there was no need to state that Bucky was the vulnerable one here, needing that protecting more than you did in this moment. Maybe you didn’t need protecting, but you did need someone, some kind of anchor and comfort in this.

But with the speed and stealth of a nocturnal predator, Cerberus’s black figure disappeared over the rooftop, and with him another little piece of your tattered heart.

You looked up from your shadowed spot in the alleyway, eyes traveling up the towering Avengers building, standing across the way from your hidden position. It shone like a beacon and stretched up endlessly into the night sky, bright white lights glittering like diamonds.

You could practically _feel_ Bucky here. It was like a fog of invisible air, filled with wisps of delicate spring florals and warmth.

This realm wasn’t home. Not in the slightest. It was loud and bright and chaotic and boisterous and emotional. The Underworld was serene and grey and calm and efficient and cool. But it had never really been a true home either, had it? A predictable and unchanging sanctuary at most.

And as you felt the achingly familiar sense of Bucky near, you knew a place wasn’t your home but a person.

_Him_.

You wondered if he was up there somewhere, out on a balcony looking down and wanting you as desperately as you wanted him.

You tried to hold onto that feeling of him, tried to strain your eyes up countless floors to try and see him, if just once more even from such an uncrossable distance.

Your focus was interrupted by a large figure, striding with purpose passed the alley and towards that glittering Tower. And something about him made a part of your brain snap to attention, where the innumerable others who were on their way to and fro to clubs and bars had not.

Stepping forward, you watched the person- a man who was tall with beady black-looking eyes and fists clenched to his sides- stop at the edge of the street, looking both ways before crossing it. He was heading right towards the expanse of large glass front doors.

He had with him a glossy security pass the size of a credit card, needed for entering after hours. With a tap of the card, he was on his way inside towards the white and glass lobby.

Like the predator eyes of Cerberus, your eyes narrowed and focus became unshakable on this man. Invisible to the world, you started right for those doors.

Because you recognized him, a flash of familiarity from those small, void eyes.

And he was _supposed_ to be dead.

* * *

 

Twenty-four hours later you were spent. No sleep, no stopping, no reprieve from the burning anger in your veins compounded as each little detail started to show itself to you.

You had stalked them- _all_ of them- and there just wasn’t time to wait anymore. Wasn’t time to leave Bucky in the dark, wasn’t time to play it safe or even _smart_ anymore.

The party was underway some twenty floor above you, the ruckus and booming baseline floating down around the building, just a distant hum in Bucky’s small apartment.

The glittering gold of Tony’s party and its guests would be filled with sparkling champagne, twinkling laughter, and decadent excess. Goddesses and gods would be dressed to the nines in rich flowing gowns, deep velvet suits, and smiles set on their painted faces.

And _thank the gods_ Bucky hadn’t joined them.

The others agreed it was best not to put himself in that risky of a situation, even if it meant he was confined to quarters instead. His friends may be there to keep a watchful eye on him, but so Pierce would be there too. Based on what you saw today, you could guarantee that the party was the furthest thing from safe.

Here with Cerberus and the Wraiths, Bucky was protected. The moment you saw that first dead-man-walking enter this building, passed the security features, and down ten floors to hallways and rooms teeming with people like him, you had sent the Wraiths to stay with Bucky.

Yes, it left you without their protection should something go south, but that was hardly your first concern.

In your eyes, you saw the Wraiths now standing under every window and by every door of Bucky’s place. 

Just a ghostly wisp of pale mist set in the shape of a person, with the finer details of their weapons and armour lost, and their features nothing but a black abyss. They were a kind of harbinger to both the living and dead alike, and though everyone who had the terrible luck to encounter them up close felt a chill deeper than Arctic ice, you yourself didn’t altogether mind it.

Cerberus looked comfortable enough in the slight cool of the room too you noted. He was laying down with a heavy head on massive paws, a metal hand cording absently and gently through his thick fur. Those glowing eyes blinked open and look right too you, content to close again in the added comfort of you being here too.

But as always it was Bucky, whole and alive, that made you pause the moment you slunk into the apartment from the open balcony.

He was sitting up on the couch, legs stretched out and reading an old book, something worn and tragic by the looks of the title. Or, perhaps, his expression somehow altered the very text itself, his look of weariness and slow-burning torment a fixture on his face behind a blank stare.

You were silent, unable to look away from him- your husband, and _gods_ you loved thinking of him as that- as though those deep, endlessly blue eyes numbed your tongue and movements of your body for an endless little second of time.

He looked dangerous, the blue-silver and gold etched metal of his arm exuding power, coupled with the thick muscles through the entirety of his body. He looked beautiful too though, the contour of his jaw and cheekbones alone just about cutting you to the quick, much less the haphazard part of his rich brown hair and gentle pink of his lips. And to you he looked innocent, slow blinking eyes and calm little breaths easing in and out gently in the quiet, clad in grey sweatpants and a simple white shirt as though he wasn’t the central figure in the struggle to prevent all-out war.

As you found your senses again and moved from the open doorway into the apartment proper, the Wraith that had moved in deference shifted back into his position. It caused a rush of cold that enveloped the Wraiths to stir in the air, and it pulled Bucky’s lip down momentarily in a vague frown.

“Please stop moving,” he said distractedly, and the Wraiths listened, the floating movements halting where they stood. It caused you in your silence to raise an impressed eyebrow.

_He shouldn’t know how to do that yet… He shouldn’t even know that they’re_ here _…._

“Commanding them already, huh?”

You could practically see the goosebumps erupt over his skin at the sound of your voice, air spiking in his chest, with his head and wide blue eyes snapping in the darkness to find you.

As you pulled off the horned helmet that concealed you, you became visible to him. Clad in black and looking ready for a battle, you melted into the shadows though nothing could keep his eyes off of you.

He barely seemed to think- just act- jumping up from the couch and knocking over the little white coffee table in the process. The explosive fire in his blue eyes was undeniable and it was like it burned your skin already, the pleasant warmth of his desire sparking your own. 

He stormed across the small distance of the room and about crashed into you, his hands holding your face as his mouth sealed with urgency to yours.

The kiss was forceful and heated, making you stumble back to hit the wall. Bucky’s body stayed on yours the entire way, pressing into you and pinning you there. It was as though his very body refused to let you go or give you the chance to part from him.

He didn’t know what to do, and honestly you didn’t either, too overrun with feeling him again to give any direction to the encounter.

The velvet feel of his firm lips parted and tongue met yours, demanding and accepting nothing less than submission. His hands were all over you, pulling you close and digging into your skin, as though needing to check every inch of you to make sure it was really you. You heard the longing, stuttered pull of sound in the back of his throat, aching and fevered and calling for more of you.

You couldn’t tell if you were dizzy or if both of you were holding on to each other as though for dear life, like gravity itself couldn’t hold you down from this elation.

Moving those searing, burning, _wonderful_ lips down the column of your throat, you dug your nails into his chest and shoulders, trying to blink away the stomach twisting euphoria. Even now as he moved to connect his lips to your shoulder and behind your ear and down your neck, his frame, tall and muscled, enveloped you, his hips and chest crushing yours in that painful, exquisite way.

“Bucky-” you breathed. But at the sound of your voice, his lips sealed to yours again, catching the end of his name in his mouth, pulling it from you and replacing it with a moan from his throat.

Every fierce grip of his hands on your body and fevered press of his lips to you shouted the word “love” over and over, and your movements and response screamed it back to him breathless.

Deeply. Completely. Recklessly.

Those words you had spoken to each other rung loud and practically wordless in your mind, the feeling behind each leaving you formless beyond the love that consumed you. All were true, but that last one was never so true as it was now.

This was a reckless love, dangerously so. You would shun safety, responsibility, logical thought for the sunlight Bucky brought you, lost in his light.

In the deep darkness you were filled with it, that soothing moonlight and lively sunlight of his very soul, forcibly drawing you in and pressing deeper.

In your haze of this sweet, heated reunion, neither of you were aware of footsteps walking up to the apartment door. Neither heard the knock on the door, the thundering of your hearts beating against each other the only pounding you heard.

But with sudden and shocking movement, you were ripped away from Bucky. The burn from his skin being pulled from yours felt like your skin was shredded, the feeling of teeth wrapped around your shoulder and the bone-rattling crush of the wall being slammed against your back.

A second later, before either of you could truly react, a security beep sounded and the door began to open. Cerberus pinned you in the shadows, hiding you completely from sight as an unannounced visitor opened the door. Bucky moved to step closer to you, cutting short in the centre of the room as he turned to the source of the sudden intrusion.

The gold light of the hallway outside didn’t touch Bucky, stopping just before his feet and leaving him and his state of lust and love hidden to the figure at the door.

The man nodded as he caught sight of Bucky, not moving in past the threshold.

“Evening,” The man said- a Jasper Sitwell by the name on his security pass strung from his neck- somewhat politely. “I’m just checking in. The party is going on upstairs, but we’re keeping a careful eye out.”

Bucky nodded, a curt movement of acknowledgment, answering the question behind the words.

“I don’t plan on joining them,” he said after a moment, voice sounding more controlled than you thought it would. From your short distance, you heard the slight panting of his breath though. “I’ll be sleeping from here on out.”

“Understood,” The man said, content with that no doubt. “We’ll leave you to it.”

Blissfully he moved to close the door, stepping back to leave. The click of the door and fading shadow of footsteps from the crack underneath was enough for Bucky to whip around back to you, groping through the darkness to find you while Cerberus moved to give you space again.

When his hands connected to you, catching on to your waist and arm, he jerked you closer with a hungry desperation glinting deep in his eyes.

“The party’s tonight,” you confirmed quickly, breathless and just a moment before his kiss overtook you again. His arms were an iron grip around you, binding you close while deep blue eyes held your gaze. “And I’m going.”

Something in what you said didn’t compute, his brows furrowing as he fought to control the emotions rippling under his skin and your words. His breathing was rampant again, as though without you there was no oxygen in the air and now he worked to fill his lungs again.

“You… you _can’t_ though,” he whispered, the deep timbre of his voice as soothing a balm as his body was on yours.

“But can’t you feel it, Bucky?” you asked him quietly, eyes searching his for some kind of realization.

He could only shake his head, eyes flitting from your lips back to your gaze, concerned by your own concern and wanting to kiss it away. You could see the conflict in his eyes to keep from doing just that.

He may have somehow figured out the Wraiths were here and that as a ruler of the Underworld now he could command them, but he hadn’t picked up what else was lurking in this building.

“There is something wrong here,” you explained. “Off-kilter. It’s the dead… they’re here, Bucky.”

Bucky turned to the nearest Wraith, that thread of confusion lingering still in him. You answered him before he could ask the question

“The ones that are missing, I mean. The ones that got out of the Underworld,” you said. “They’re crawling all over this place and Thor is none the wiser. From what I’ve seen today no one is. With the Underworlders banished from here, there isn’t anyone _competent_ enough to point it out.”

You sighed in frustration, wrapping your arms tighter around him unconsciously. He responded in kind, his embrace holding you nearer. You let that wash of soothing heat wash across your skin along with the calming scent that was uniquely Bucky’s.

“The party upstairs is full of all the gods and goddesses of this realm,” you continued, feeling your muscles tighten to rigid coils under your skin. “Pierce has to act fast before Thor finds something. He knows the clock is ticking. If he’s going to strike and if the army he stole from the Underworld is any indication, it’ll be tonight.”

“Command the dead back to the Underworld,” Bucky said quickly, brows furrowing in puzzlement that you hadn’t done it already.

If only it were that simple.

Bucky was King of the Underworld, able to command the Wraiths and had countless other abilities, but he didn’t know everything there was to know of the realm he ruled. Not nearly.

“I can’t, Bucky. It doesn’t work like that. The living mortals can’t come to the Underworld without slowly but eventually dying,” you explained, shaking your head. “And the dead can’t come back to this realm without living. That’s kind the whole point of keeping things so separate.”

Usually that wasn’t much of a problem. _Usually_ you didn’t have to think of the perverted mixture that resulted if those rules were broken.

“Most of lesser constitution fade into oblivion, hence part of the urgency to bring them back. But those that stay and _can_ handle the transition come to some gross aberration of life again. We’d be able to zero in on them quickly otherwise. The part of them that turns living makes it more and more difficult to detect them the longer they’re out.”

“What do we need to do?” Bucky said seriously, and for a moment your heart was warmed by it. It was impossible to describe what it felt like to have him on your side.

Even if he couldn’t help.

“Stay here,” you said gently, your thumb brushing comfortingly along the soft, stubbly cheek of his. “With Cerberus and the Wraiths.”

“No, I’m coming _with_ you,” he said instantly, eyes slightly wider before immediately jerking you closer to him, almost pushing his lips against yours.

You felt it too, the fury and recoil of your soul at the mere _idea_ of leaving him again. You didn’t want too and could feel from his tight hold and the look in his eyes that he was feeling the same. 

You didn’t have the luxury to fight it though. At the end of this all, Bucky had to be safe.

“No darling,” you tried again gently, hand threading through his hair. “If you’re there I won’t be able to focus on _anything_ else. You’ll be safe here, I swear it.”

“Don’t _say_ that,” he said, a mix of hurt and frustration shaking through the more he spoke. It was mirrored in his eyes, the jewel tone looking fiery in the darkness. “You have _no_ back-up and no-one on your side if leave them here with me. You don’t know what he’s planning and you can’t walk in blind and _alone_ , Y/N!”

“Steve and Natasha and-”

“They are Thor’s gods, Y/N,” he insisted. “ _I_ am yours. _Only_ yours. You need someone there for you. You don’t _know_ what you’re walking into here.”

You sighed, closing your eyes and letting your head fall down to rest against him. For a moment you let yourself nuzzle into the space between his shoulder and neck, letting the presence and feel of him seep down into you. You wanted to carry that feeling with you. That reassurance there was someone you loved who loved you, warm and complete and protective.

You never thought you would have that, being who you were in the role you were in, and now that you had it you would never give it up. Even if that meant stepping away from it.

“I know it hurts, darling. I _do_ , I feel it too,” you said, before looking up to him and trying to make him believe it. “But I’ve got this.”

You leaned up and kissed him, this time delicate and slow. It was a mere brush of your lips to his, only lightly touching, though it sparked that fire in you nonetheless.

Quietly you began to pull back, but his hand snaked up to the back of your neck, holding you still while he took the kiss deeper. He wasn’t going to just let you go without more, without feeling more of you.

His arm wrapped around your hips, fitting them snug to his own while the press of his lips then demands of his tongue pushing into you made you lean, arching back. His body stayed to yours, binding you in, leaning over you, drinking you in with every wet movement of his lips.

With a gasp you broke away, only able to move your head to the side as his arms circled tighter, chest pounding against yours.

“I promised to keep you safe,” you said breathlessly, the words spoken into his skin as that was the extent of the space he could allow. “And by the end of tonight, I _will_.”

Even now with his lips not sealed to yours, the pressed of him on you still stole your breath away no matter how much you tried to breathe.

His was a picture of intensity like you hadn’t seen before, with the heartbreak of separation driving him to cling to you like a parched man to a drop of water in the desert. 

But with him able to control the beings you sent to protect him, you _had_ to know he would stay of his own volition. You had to be sure that this intensity to be yours wouldn’t make him leave the protection of this place while you went out to protect him.

“And I’ve made promises too, Y/N,” he returned, nose brushing yours and lips hovering so close to yours. “To not let anyone tear us apart, that I’d stay with you no matter what. That you’re _mine_ , just like I’m yours. That I’d look out for you too. I’ve already broken enough by leaving your side, I _can’t_ stay away from you anymore.”

You knew as much. Knew it would be all the more painful to come here then have to leave him. You bitterly remembered the feel of him walking away, leaving you at the gate in agony. He couldn’t look at you then, couldn’t see the pain in your eyes or painful strikes of lighting behind you at your rage and heartbreak.

But now, as it was your turn to leave him behind, you looked to him, unable to look away.

“And I’m holding you to those,” you said, reaching between your bodies and pulling out a small little token. “But I _can’t_ let this be the only thing that remains of you if you’re captured or killed.”

You held the little thing in your hand, the clear medallion with a single white flower in full bloom. Suspended ever in a state of eternal life, it was made by Bucky to represent so much between you. The biggest of those reasons being your undying love for one another.

You wouldn’t survive it if that little symbol was all that was left once this was over.

He sighed, your palm closing as he reached for that hand and brought it to his lips, lingering there with eyes closed.

It was a look of defeat, of pain, and bitter understanding.

It took no small amount of strength, but you released yourself from his embrace, pulling his arms from you. 

Stepping around him into the centre of the room, the heat you had felt in his arms was replaced by the cool of the creatures in here who were at your command.

With eyes going a steely, icy blue you looked around to the pale, misty soldiers. Without a word they began to solidify before your and Bucky’s eyes, him watching from behind you in quiet shock.

The Wraiths were tall and broad, with black holes for eyes and emotionless stoic faces that although corporeal, blended in almost menacingly in the shadows. Their weapons ready and in hand, they watched and waited for your orders. When you spoke it was the mix of an icy rasp and deep bass that dripped with power.

“Kill anyone that means him harm,” you said to them, and jerk of a nod from each in unison your only reply.

You turned down to Cerberus, who was up and sitting at attention now, ears perked up and eyes a restless, excited glow.

“Don’t let anyone through that door, understand?” you said to him, who responded with low gruff of agreeance. “Get him back to the Underworld at _any_ cost if you’re overrun.”

With that you took a deep breath in, eyes returning to their usual colour and body shifting down into something a little more pained. You turned back to your love, heart aching as much as his looked to be. 

He stood with shoulders slouched, fists clenched, and the corners of his mouth pulled down. He slipped so quickly into this state, like he had been there for so long already. 

You understood, feeling that the time you had spent without him had been endless too.

Gently you walked back to him, leaning up to kiss his cheek and along the stubble of his jawline slowly and delicately. You wanted that feel of him and smell of him to linger on you long after you left, reminding you of spring and a life and a purpose.

“Be safe,” he whispered, turning down to you with burning eyes. You felt his hand come up you back and thread through your hair again, holding you fast one last time. “And come _back_ to me.”

You barely could nod before he kissed you again, melting into you with the heat of his lips almost burning yours as though branding them as his.

You could feel his hands being to work you again, pressing in deep and threatening with every passing second to not let you go after all. Reaching some source of unknown strength inside you, you grasped his hands, pulling them off you.

The bitterness of this was still on his face, the lines of pain by his eyes standing out in the dim of the room. This was his fight that you were putting yourself in danger for and it was eating him alive.

You would have it no other way.

“Always, my love,” you whispered to him, stroking his cheek and wishing you would wipe away the torment you saw there.

Bucky stepped away if only slightly, head hanging. His backdrop was that of a wall of roses, near black petals and sharp thorns weaving together in a thick bramble. As you reached for your helmet and stepped away from him, you could see through the darkness that they were beginning to die on the vine, wilting before your eyes.

“One way or another, this will end tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey loves, I made a playlist on Spotify here:
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/645kae4dakpg8ndodibrhij7e/playlist/0gMLuQJBdLFULtAurXF9bK?si=dHiToUTzS2WjVd9acRwi_g
> 
> If there's a song you think works with this fic, let me know and I'd love to check it out. Thanks darlings!


	17. The Belle of the Ball

Strolling into the party, you were a vision to behold.

And oh, did people stare.

The glittering gold of the chandeliers and aura of the party itself gave your black outfit a warm glow, looking more ready for war (though you held no weapons) than a party. The shimmers that danced from dazzling jewelry and shining eyes couldn’t hold the attention of anyone else as you smoothly walked through the ornate double doors. You held everyone captivated and for all the wrong reasons.

You used to merely put up with these parties, loathing the fake facades and bubbling laughter. Everyone was always trying to look better- _be_ better- than they were, and you were never one to play along with that. Save a few exceptions, you saw through these crowds to the hearts that lay underneath, and they were decayed and rotten.

Here they seemed to recognize the moment their eyes connected to your frame who you really were: a force to be reckoned with and, not a sullen, cold fixture to be gossiped about and avoided. The crowds of people quieted as you stepped into the room, their bodies parting like waves at your feet.

The black sleek armour you lived in for days shone with warmth, and as you eyes scanned the crowd, your gaze held none of it. Disinterest and cold, for once you didn’t pretend to be a polite and demure guest, sneaking off to the side and waiting until you could leave. Now you walked through the throngs of people, not the typical light and airy laughter but hushed whispers following you.

Soon enough there was one figure parting the crowd from the other direction, heading right towards you as people jumped to the side to avoid collision. His blonde and practically glowing hair was pulled back loosely, and that beautiful and maroon jacket he wore brought out those piercing, angry eyes.

Thor practically collided into you as you held your ground, heavy footsteps come abruptly to a halt as you stood unmoving in front of him, lines of his face etched with seriousness and hard determination. He quickly wrapped an abrasive, biting grip on your arm that would be enough to break mortal bone. The god jerked you closer, looming over you with a fire in his crystal blue eyes.

“Why shouldn’t I _smite_ you here and now?” he seethed, hushed and furious.

Your eyebrow raised, unphased by the rumbling in his chest and heat behind his stare. You weren’t here to quiver and cower, and an icy confidence burst through your veins in response to his challenge. Before you could open your mouth to speak, you were interrupted.

“Because I invited her!” Tony said, stepping in from out of nowhere, smile large and bright.

He forcefully though good-naturedly shoved a drink in Thor’s hand, making him release you and step back half a step. He slung an arm over both your shoulders and Thor’s, jarring you both, much to the furious and annoyed looked on Thor’s face. He gave you both a squeeze and looked between you as though you were all the best of friends in this moment.

“C’mon, we’ve done a great job working together to rebuild after all that terrible business,” Tony said, as though that “terrible business” of the Winter Soldier breaking down the Underworld was now over. Hardly. The gate still needed fortifying and some of Tartarus was still in shambles. “We deserve to celebrate _together._ ”

The silence was palpable as Tony held on to both of you, neither ruler of the dead or the living acquiescing.

“Here,” he said, leaning in a little with a smaller smile and feigning reasonability. “I’m sure Y/N’ll stay here where we can keep an eye on her, then she’ll leave early as she _usually_ does and go right home, _right_ Y/N?”

You didn’t waver but you did pause, taking a moment to look into Thor’s eyes with your own hard expression. Without words, you gave a curt, firm, and most importantly sincerity-filled (or your most convincing rendition of it) nod.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but you did, you saw a ripple of something akin to acceptance in his eyes. Or maybe reluctant agreeance. Just as you assumed there would be, giving you the benefit of the doubt, even if your leash would be short.

Thor was a god who loved challenge, certainly, but much more so in his younger days. Now the ever blonde God of Thunder’s goal was peace.

Quite honestly, you were a god of _balance_ , peace or war be damned.

And he couldn’t see in your expression the “only if” statements that rang through your head.

You would come and leave, only if Pierce didn’t show.

Only if he didn’t attack the goddesses and gods here.

Only if he didn’t use the dead- your dead- to do is bidding.

Only if he paid for what he had done to Bucky.

You would balance the evil that lurked and manipulated and schemed if that’s what was needed here tonight. Brutally so if need be. And you were just about certain you would have to do just that.

“See?” Tony said loudly to Thor with a broad grin. “She’s fully onboard and no-one’s feathers need be ruffled. Now! Let’s get you some spirits big guy.”

With a grip on his shoulder Tony turned the cautious and still perturbed Thor away, steering him from an all-out fight. The host of the party looked over his shoulder and threw a devilish little wink at you, walking both through the throngs of people to the bar.

After that the glow and exuberance of the party came back to near full swing, with only hushed whispers and the odd sideways glance thrown your way as you circled through the room. Your eyes were ever quietly scanning, searching for dead that shouldn’t be here. You skin was ever attuned to feel the brush of cold air from them.

In the course of your “casual strolling” through the party, the familiar faces of Natasha and Steve reached you eventually, elbowing and gliding through the party-goers.

They were beautifully dressed, with Nat’s dramatic winged eyeliner matching the eye-catching, form-fitting black dress she had on. Whiskey on the rocks in hand, the ice subtly clinked in time with her hips as she walked towards you.

Steve was less formally dressed, his suit jacket abandoned earlier in the night from the heat of the festivities, leaving him in black pants and a fitted Prussian blue button-down shirt, whose sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. A beer bottle, barely drunk from, was in his hand and a glass of champagne in the other.

As they approached, you moved back to the outskirts of room for a modicum of privacy, shoulder brushing the cool and broad expanse of window that revealed the lights of the city far below.

“This bodes well,” Natasha remarked as she stepped up to you, her level voice not with that usual hint of sarcasm. “The room still stands.”

“Definitely shouldn’t have betted against you and Y/N,” Steve said, a good-natured look in his light blue eyes. He passed you the glass of champagne while your eyes roamed between the pair and the party. “Doomed to lose that one.”

“Damn straight, Rogers,” Natasha mumbled into her drink with a slight smirk.

But the heaviness that shrouded you couldn’t help but be felt, Natasha’s smirk melting down into something with a tinge of seriousness.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, eyes moving between your own in search of the answer.

You could have answered that a thousand different ways, but you knew she wasn’t asking about your feelings or thoughts or even yourself. Just the facts.

“The dead,” you said, taking a sip of the pale bubbly liquid from the flute in your hand. “They’re here.”

The words were light and vague, a shrug of your shoulder to punctuate it in an attempt to keep up your level of casualness. You didn’t know who could be watching or listening.

Steve stepped in closer, hand on your elbow and voice lowered.

“This _can’t_ devolve into war, Y/N,” he warned. “You can’t bring them here. You are seriously pushing this enough as it is”

“You’ll be surprised to hear that they aren’t _mine_ ,” you emphasized, purposefully leaving out the band of Wraiths circling Bucky not twenty floors below you. What Steve didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him though. “These are the ones that were broken out of the Underworld. And I’ll give you one guess as to who owns them now.”

You took another sip of champagne, using it hide the flash of anger you tried to quell at your words. There was a pause as Nat and Steve looking back between each other, the weight of what this meant not lost on either.

“How many?” Nat said, voice even though you could almost see that subtle shift in her. Her slipping into battle-mode was as easy and seamless as dipping into a pool of water. The lines in her body remained the same, but you could see tight coils of muscles preparing to strike if need be.

“Too many,” you said dully. “All congregating and working out of the basement levels.”

You could practically see Steve’s stomach drop, the blue in his eyes almost draining for a second.

“That’s where S.H.I.E.L.D works out of,” was all he said, leaving the conclusions and next fiery flash of anger to wash through you.

Gods help you, you would have torn the building apart that moment to reach Bucky if you hadn’t left Cerberus and the Wraiths with him.

The guards watching him were S.H.I.E.L.D, the ones who tracked him and checked in on him and were tasked with _protecting_ him. Steve and Nat and so many others worked within S.H.I.E.L.D. but it appeared Pierce had a stronger hold on them than anyone could have imagined.

Hydra was within S.H.I.E.L.D. and to protect your friends, all the realms, and your Bucky, you’d have to bring them down.

You unceremoniously downed the rest of your champagne while Nat took a slow deep breath in.

“So, we don’t trust S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she said, swallowing. “Just each other.”

Steve’s fist clenched around his beer bottle, the shock and rage swallowed down as best he could manage.

“And who from the Underworld do we have on our side to fight them?” Steve said, trying to seem like his usual self as he fought the dark swell of fury, looking out to the crowd to search for enemies and friends alike.

“Just me,” you said with a forced, bitter smile as he turned back to you, his eyebrows raised. Your friend knew you well enough it seemed to be surprised by that.

You opened your mouth to explain, but were stopped short by the appearance of a man entering the party from across the floor.

He was in a dark blue suit, brown polished dress shoes, and his tell-tale red hair.

Pierce strode in, polite smile on his face as he mingled with the other gods. Outwardly he was oblivious to your presence here, but you knew in that cocky way he held himself that he already found out you were here. Some informant would have told him already no doubt.

You didn’t notice the temperature drop or the blue steel of your eyes take over, but Steve did, stepping in front of you with his steadying hand holding you.

“I could just end him,” you whispered almost inaudibly, a raspy sound dripping with malice.

“Yeah, and any peace between you and Thor would be ended,” Nat remarked. “ _Brutally_ so.”

“Thor doesn’t handle things the way you want too, Y/N–” Steve said, voice lowered in the small space between you.

“Yes, he’s far too diplomatic with murderous traitors, _isn’t_ he,” you spat.

Taking a moment you used the protective stance of Steve to close your eyes and roll your shoulders, trying to compose yourself. With a twinkling snap of the champagne flute, tiny shards of glass fell at your feet. Before you could so much as react to the broken glass, Natasha plucked it from your hand and threw what was left into the pot of a broad-leafed tropical plant a few steps away.

She stepped back into the tight circle, no-one noticing your lapse and nothing looking out of place. Except for the murder in your eyes.

You knew he would be here. You knew it, and you still came.

Not because you wanted to rip off his head where he stood (well, technically you really really did) but to try and play this the right way.

There would be no room for error here with you needing to be ready for him to make to the first move. Because the second he and his undead army attacked, you would have to attack too. Obviously you, being Pierce’s direct opposition, would be the first person he would try to fell.

You had to be faster and smarter and better than him. This way Thor could see his treachery when he commanded the undead army, and you could stop Pierce before the body count piled up.

You were a goddess of balance. You could do this. You could balance this and keep everything from tipping into chaos and brutal death. You would not have a lot of time or resources, but you could do this.

“We have to tell the others,” you said, quiet and struggling to keep controlled. _Gods, it would be just so easy to kill him right now_. “The ones we can trust.”

You waited for them to part, Steve’s arm from dropping from you, but stayed where he was. Nat remained still too, both of them waiting to see if you’d snap.

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” you assured, looking between them with a deep breath and calm expression. “I’ll stay away from him. For now, anyways.”

Nat and Steve nodded, wordlessly parting after a quiet look to one another.

Taking only a few steps back, they were immediately engulfed into the party again, getting lost in the crowd of laughing, cheery gods and goddesses.

You watched from the outskirts as Steve talked to Sam, lingering together for a minute or two before sauntering on, looking like he was heading to the bar for a refill. He saddled up away from the bartender though, talking with Pietro. Natasha did the same kind of mingling, you catching her red bob occasionally through the crowds and amiably talking with Bruce, then Maria.

All the while you in your passive silence grew more tense and more twisted with anger. You hated waiting, your muscles twitching under your skin and a piece of your soul screaming at you to do something.

You had wanted this so _badly_ and now you were in a holding pattern that left you crazed and furious, losing your grip on why you had to delay putting an end to your and your husband’s torment.

Minutes passed, the sounds of laughing turning manic and eerie in your ears. The crowd became too thick with bodies pressing in too close. The smell of booze was infuriating, the warmth too much and the glow too bright. You wanted cold and quiet and _Bucky_ , not this mess.

Then in an instant, time seemed to slow down.

The din of the party retreated to the back of your mind, and something else came forward.

It was a feeling across your skin, something cool and pleasant in its familiarity. But it wasn’t quite right, and distantly, though it felt natural to you there was something so wrong about it too. It felt like a little piece of the Underworld, but perverted somehow, and it whispered passed you.

Whatever- or whoever- it was, was dead.

_They’re here._

You knew then that Pierce was ready. You had to be too.

When time snapped back into place, it was as though it suddenly had to overcompensate, now flooding forward too fast as the next sequence of events seemed happen all at once.

The chill that came into the room wasn’t from the dead, but you, the icy drop spreading out to the far corners of the room. It snapped and lashed at skin, sending an overwhelming chill through the bodies of everyone there.

The shattering, ear-piercing crash of glass bursting and spraying to the floor sounded. It was not the light twinkling sound of a broken champagne flute, but a thunderous herald of the oncoming storm it brought. The noise blocked out any other sense or sound as it broke through eardrums.

Black-clad bodies in tactical gear and weapons, ready for a fight, entered from every window, every entrance, every crevice of the room. They were pale and grey and breathing, neither quite dead or quite alive.

A sharp pain erupted at your side, an intrusion piercing through your skin and ribs into the organs below. As though a dam was bursting, a gold cascade of blood breached through the confines of your body and flooded out of you.

Your hand whipped out reflexively without your express directive, closed like a trap around the neck of a person- a living yet dead person- harshly halting them where they stood. Their feet were lifted from the ground by the strength of your hand, pain of your wound ignored as though merely a forgettable inconvenience.

Your turned- eyes glassy, icy blue, and lethal- with your nails digging deeper into your attacker’s flesh as a sneer pulled across your mouth and darkness began to loom over you.

_He’ll have to do better than that._

A second later you burst into action, swiftly pulling out the weapon from your side and sinking it into man you were choking. You released your hold and he hit the ground in a withering heap, not giving him a second thought before turning to the madness that had already started.

Frantic fighting and shouts had exploded around you, the sheer amount of people making it impossible for those who could fight to get at those attacking. You stormed through the crowd, knocking into the fleeing innocents who were scrambling for cover or escape. They were colourful, speeding flashes in front of your eyes, blocking you from seeing anything or anyone beyond a few feet in front of you in the whirlwind of flowing dresses and blood-curdling screams.

Catching onto a sleek, silver pillar which was one of several that outlined the dancefloor, you held on to steady yourself and see what was happening. You caught sight of men and women in black gear, focused on fighting those loyal to Thor and this realm.

A flash of silver whizzed through, and your eyes snapped to it. That silver stream of air stopped only long enough to send a blow to the faces of the enemy it reached, catapulting them back ten feet in the air with its hard blow.

_Pietro._

A blue circle whipped just in front of you, this time a flash of blue and red.

_Steve’s shield._

A gargle and sputter of a man sounded, their neck squeezed to near lifelessness as a black dressed woman was locked on his shoulders. She, with calculated efficiency, threw herself down to the ground, landing on her hands and flipping the man halfway across the dancefloor, tucking into a roll and landing on her feet.

_Natasha._

As you took a split second to take the scene in, you steadied your breathing letting not just the tidal wave of power overwhelm you, but your rage and resolve too.

It made your skin tight across your body, as though it was too much to contain under your skin. Frost scattered in veiny patterns across your skin, the temperature of the room nearing zero. Zaps and snaps cracked around you with the sheer energy of the power flowing through you.

It was pure, and dark, and would tear the dead apart.

You reached out into the space in front of you, closing your fist tightly while you concentrated on the unmistakable feel of the dead in the room. The thrall you had over them should bring them to their very knees, your dominion over them leaving no recourse but to kneel before you.

But _life_ clung to them still, and you had no real power over the living.

… But you could still  _kill_ the living.

Almost madly you spun around, a black crack of lightning erupting in your hand revealing your two-pronged spear, finding the next traitor. Then the next and the next and the next.

Stabbing through thick fabric, it was meant to keep bullets out, but not you. You barely saw them, not deigning to care to look at pathetic acolytes as these. Cutting into their sides and across their throats, you did make them sink to their knees after all, but in a much difference more lethal way.

As you slashed and cut down their endless numbers and as life left them, a black billowing mist rose up from the very ground under their feet to meet them. It smelt of ash and snow and spine-shivering death. Sinking into this wailing blackness, they disappeared.

You knew they would awake to find themselves in the Underworld, locked behind a cell. Those that fell at the end of your spear didn’t need a trial or leniency and they would receive none, ending up in the worst imprisonment of the damned for eternity.

You wanted to reach out and strike them all down in one fatal blow, that crawling, greedy mist overtaking the room and sucking them back into the pits of Tartarus.

But as Pierce well knew, the full extent of power from you or Thor or anyone like you couldn’t be unleashed here, not if you wanted to keep the other gods alive.

Suddenly a new but familiar sound rang out in the din, snapping your attention to it. A scrambling like claws across steel sounded, another creature bursting in from the cold outside with a raging howl. Its three sets of teeth were bared and murderous call echoed in the chaos, setting in a skin-crawling fear to all those but you.

_Cerberus!_

Like lightning he tore through the room, overtaking man after man in sprays of blood and bone. The three heads on his shoulders now swiveled and clamped down on the bodies of the attackers who swarmed him. The whirl and billow of that black misty shadow instantly overtook all that Cerberus shredded, their wails drown out as their bodies disappeared back to the Underworld.

In the focus of the fight, you couldn’t even release a tortured “no!” from your throat. A pulse of bone-shaking fear rattled you, as Cerberus’s presence here was not at all a comfort.

It absolutely _terrified_ you.

Loyal to a fault, you knew he could’ve smell your blood from a realm away. You didn’t know if he had merely abandoned Bucky in the response to your stab in the side, or if he had brought him to the Underworld, only now to join you in the fight.

“Y/N!” a strangled yell hit you.

It was Steve, fighting hand to hand with the undead as it pushed him to the floor. Faster than your brain could process you were sprinting for him, not bothering to slow down as you violently pierced through the undead man’s heart. Instead of slamming into his body with your momentum, he dissolved into dust as you overtook him, the black mist dissipating as you slid to a stop.

“They aren’t going down!” Steve said as he got up off the floor, bloodied and panting but as determined as ever. An indomitable spirit, he would never back away from a fight.

“They’re living and dead!” you yelled back, turning to slash the torso of another as hordes ran to overtake you both. “You have to kill the living part, and we have to send the dead part back!”

A hammer suddenly flew past your face, the presence jerking you back before it hit the swarming crowd that came your way. Mjolnir flew back, giving you not only a second of breathing room but clarity.

Without realizing, you had been screaming internally, a scream that you had on repeat but couldn’t hear above your instincts to fight:

_Get to Pierce! End this!_

“I’m going for Pierce!” you shouted at Steve, leaving him with a curt nod from the soldier as he punched out another goon.

Your body moved like a magnet across the room, dodging brawls and bloody screams and chaos.

Clad in black you blended into and through the mist, flashes of the dark, dirty walls of Tartarus appearing as though in a hazy dream and disappearing as you moved through it.

You didn’t think, didn’t stop, didn’t breath when you saw him- Pierce, the bane of your eternal being- circled by his most loyal men.

You didn’t think, didn’t stop, didn’t breath when you slashed through the stomachs and throats of those men surrounding him.

You didn’t think, didn’t stop, didn’t breath when you grabbed his neck and squeezed, your grip stronger and harder than iron.

You didn’t think, didn’t stop, didn’t breath as his mask broke and those dead eyes had the audacity to meet your stare, unafraid and unyielding.

You didn’t stop- didn’t give him an inch- until he was on the ground, throat under your foot, spear in his face, and deadly eyes gazing down with cold ferocity.

“Call it off!” you boomed, voice like a rasp and a deep clap of thunder at once. You shook, not with fear or indecision, but pure, dark power that threatening to tear you apart from the inside if you didn’t release it on Pierce.

_I got him, finally!_

Through the rage, it was a proud, relieving, triumphant thought, but had a hollowness to it.

The fight around you halted like a rippling extending outward, his acolytes and hitmen seeing their leader pinned on the ground at your mercy.

_Was this really it? This was all he had?_

Thor, with his hammer in hand, came up beside you, disheveled and splattered with blood. His eyes were hard and breath beating in his chest. He stopped next to you, looking down into the eyes of the emotionless, guarded man on the ground.

“He deserves to rot in Tartarus for this,” came Thor, his voice not as measured and cool as you thought it should be. It was angry and broken and pained above anything.

Ripping your eyes from the enemy, you looked around to the carnage that was lying all around the room.

Thick gold splatters of blood were everywhere, gods and goddesses alike clutching and holding on to each other and cowering around the room. Several stood up among the bodies, battle-worn and confident. You saw Steve and Nat, with Tony suited in his red and gold suit, with Sam and James and Clint. Maria had a gun in hand and bloody forehead with Clint nearby. Pietro shoes squeaked out as he skidded to a stop, breathing heavily.

“Agreed,” you hissed.


	18. The Edge of the Underworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Texts are bolded here. Hope you enjoy darlings!

With a slam of the SUV door, you emerged to the cool, whipping wind coming off from the cliffside not far from where you were.

A few hours earlier you had walked into a party in Thor’s realm ready for war. Now you walked within the Underworld having won it. This time instead of walking in alone and out of place, you walked into the realm you knew so well with a company of people behind you.

Thor, Tony, Steve, Natasha, and Clint were all there, exiting the cavalcade of cars and looking with narrowed, cautious eyes around the rather barren wasteland and what lay ahead. Under their and your feet was the dried, gravelly dirt that led to a dramatically steep precipice. It was a straight shot down from that rocky ledge into the navy-black waters. The sea held the promise of untold creatures laying in wait in its depths.

The sunshine brightness of Thor and the other gods was muted here in the rolling mist as you stepped closer into the darkest, deadliest place in your realm. The others paused, staying back from the edge but your toes went right up to it, the soft grit of small stones toppling over the precipice towards the waves some hundred feet below you.

The white crests of the waves breaking gave a thunderous and distant roar, separating everyone and everything from the prison standing on an island within those waters situated several hundred feet away. There was no path, no drawbridge, no boat to it; isolated and dark, it stood alone.

Tartarus.

It stood like a dark monument in the sea, water lapping furiously against its thick black bricks. It was a towering prison, illuminated by shocks of lightning on the horizon. You saw even from your distance now that the towering walls of this place were dripping oily black ooze from the bricks, a stench of rot and salt and water covering this place like a shroud. The swirl of black and purple and grey clouds overhead made this wide open and isolated wasteland on which you stood feel somehow both stifling and exposed.

This place always sprung up a whirlwind of emotions in those that gazed at it, and it was as though you could feel them all. They had nowhere to go, stifled by the oppressive feel of what was before you and hung thick in the salty sea air.

You could feel the patient confusion from Steve behind you. The curiosity from Tony.  A newly-found measured trust for you but distrust of this place from Thor. Determination from Natasha. A weariness from Clint.

But all their emotions were mixed with a deeply-rooted primal fear that was pure in its terror. It was a palpable dread edging them and stiffening them where they stood, holding them back from the precipice you found yourself on, clinging to their bones.

Tartarus was built for the worst of any being that walked the Earth since the beginning of time. It was meant to contain gods and goddesses (and worse), holding them at bay by leaching their abilities and sapping the power from them. By proximity, all those who entered felt a bit of that same drain on themselves. It was the price in which Tartarus demanded all those that enter pay, as no gold or jewels would sate it, only the power of the those within.

And the gods of old who now dwelt there, locked up for all eternity? They were as powerful as this universe had seen. You were in charge of those beings and even though your abilities were nothing if not devastatingly strong, no one matched the sheer dominating force some had. There was an evil there that went beyond your ability to control if it came down to it. Ancient and eternal and terrifying.

Commands from military personal sounded off briefly behind you, interrupting the distance crash of waves.

The prisoners emerged from their secured, armoured transport vehicles in collared restraints on their hands and necks that blinked red. Among them Pierce, disheveled and bound as he was pushed out of the armoured truck, tightly held onto by the men in uniform alongside him. He was pushed to the front of the line behind the gods, with the dwindled number of his goons trailing behind him.

The prisoners behind you were silent and crash of water and screams of the wind drown out the wailing inside of those prison walls, but not the voice in your head.

You outwardly gave no indication of fear and no hesitation, your movements and expressions thus far as decisive and confident display as you had ever given. But your emotions were a swirl within you, crashing against your chest like the seas below. It hammered home with every second that passed who you were and how you were bound to this bitter responsibility.

But you had no choice. Into Tartarus you must go, because despite the fear and terror and aberration even _you_ had, you still ruled this place.

As you took the first step off of the cliff, the first thing that happened was a familiar noise sounding out. It was the gritty grind of stone on stone ringing out somewhere below your foot. Instead of falling into the freezing, rough waves below, a stone pillar shot out of the water and met your foot as it came level to the ground. As you walked, the pathway rose from the sea and taking you closer to Pierce’s final destination.

“Come on,” you said quietly, expression steely and eyes focused forward on your destination ahead.

Begrudgingly as you walked forward, feeling the pull of power seep from you drop by drop as you walked closer. The golden blood that dripped from your wound in the fight joined it, slipping from your body to the stone steps, then into the sea, as though trying to escape what lay ahead.

* * *

 

A loud and low buzz sounded before a click was heard and the door to this cell block began to ever-so-slowly open on its own, taking an extra minute of time you’d rather not have to spend here. It was an automated locking and unlocking system; the one you had complete authority over and one of the very systems the Winter Soldier had exploited.

You clenched your stomach against the roll of nausea as the memory of when the Winter Soldier broke down the defenses here came to your mind.

Built like a prison (as that was exactly what this was) Tartarus had multiple cell blocks in multiple zones. Four, to be exact. The lesser offenders stayed in Zone One, with the more deadly and despicable souls, monsters, and gods the higher the zone number, up to Zone Four.

The Second and Third had been completely demolished in the chaos, leaving only the First and Fourth standing. You kept your eyes closed for an additional few seconds as you thought again of what that _really_ meant and why you had been so upset when Hela had first told you.

So, if you were to combine deleted case files with a prison running at 50% capacity that housed the worst of the worst, what would you get? A disaster the likes of which you had never seen.

It meant overcrowding. It meant no one knew who was who. It meant incredibly powerful gods and creatures were housed potentially with beings much less powerful, in cells not able to properly hold them for long, packed completely beyond capacity.

It was a precarious situation to put it _lightly_. More accurately it was a timebomb, with a race to see if your side could complete repairs first or if theirs could overpower what was left.

So here you stood, waiting yet again at the thick vault-like door to this next section of Zone One. You left the guards at the main gate in favour of shades who weren’t affected by this stifling atmosphere, who ran the day to day of Tartarus. 

A number of shades had gone with Tony, Natasha, and Clint to secure Pierce’s minions in a different section of the prison, leaving you, Thor, Steve, Pierce, and several shades. You had parted aways back, and had traveled through multiple sublevels so far, going considerable distance through the grey maze that was this prison. They would be seeing identically what you were seeing here, with this maze of a place looking monotonously the same.

The corridors here were lined with concrete floors and walls without so much as a single crack or fault in them. The walls rose up so high that the ceiling itself was lost in shadow. No windows were here to speak of at all and there wasn’t a sound but the hot echoing breath of the group behind you.

As the door finally ground to a halt and you breached the threshold into this part of the prison, you perhaps could not see much damage specifically here but you now saw for yourself the outcome of it. Instead of a single occupant per cell there were multiple, some up to ten per cell.

It was the telltale scrambling of a desperate attempt to avoid complete chaos, but it was painfully clear this was the only and last option available. There were no collars and no restraints for those in the cells, with too many having been powered-down by the Winter Soldier and destroyed in the fight. And though the drain of Tartarus within those cells would still hold strong, there was something deeply wrong with this picture.

It should be painfully loud. The beatings of the enraged and embittered captives should be tearing through your eardrums right now. There should be screams and curses belted out as you walked by, with clawing hands and snarling teeth itching to breach a distance that could never be traveled.

But there was nothing but silence.

The hundreds upon hundreds here of inmates were all completely stilled.

As you walked forward the steps you took echoed down the hall, with nothing else to accompany it, save your increased heartbeat. You went further and slowly down the row, looking into cell after cell as you went. Men and women and creatures of the world stood standing upright and still. They watched you and the others with piercing, dead eyes and didn’t speak a word, following every movement you made.

The visitor badges the others wore wouldn’t give them away, but you could see the silence blood-thirst in the eyes of every inmate, knowing by name the gods and goddesses that walked through here. No one more so known to these creatures than you.

The walk seemed endless- and it would be one a few corridors to go through before you reached the cell designated for Pierce- but the thick black metal door of the next subsection finally got closer.

“Open door twenty-seven dash twelve, sub-level theta, quadrant one hundred and sixteen.”

You spoke the words into your comm, to the shades who were monitoring you closely from the main hub via video surveillance. Thor and the others in your party had received the same comm upon entry, though they didn’t have the same clearance level as you. The shades in Tony’s party would take them through the vault doors to where they needed to go, then out again, rendezvousing with you back at the main hub.

Finally, the door to the antechamber started to open, a small circular room that held multiple doors to other bolted corridors, with a buzz ringing out too long and the door taking too long to open, as was usual.

Once you reached the other side in the cool circular room with those venomous eyes off of you, you could breathe again. Instinctively your hand went to your side, pressing into the blood-wetted dressing there that was soaking through the fabric of your clothes and armour. There was a growing thrum of pain you ignored, not noticing the increase as the minutes had ticked by.

You turned on your heels to Pierce, ready to throttle him for the unexplained eeriness here, but Thor was on him already. The blonde god grabbed the prisoner, forcing him up against the wall with his arm across Pierce’s neck.

“What have you done?” came the low boom of Thor.

“You didn’t think putting my followers together would work in _your_ favour?” Pierce said, hardly phased by Thor’s death grip at all. In fact, you could see a thinly veiled smugness seeping through his facade faster by the second. It accompanied a dread in your stomach.

“Those aren’t all your followers, Pierce,” you said, eyes narrowed as you brought your hand to your comm, speaking to the other group. “Natasha, are you through the first cell block yet?”

“Not quite,” came her response, barely a whisper. Tony spoke next, equally quiet and measured as you pictured much the same circumstances as you just walked through.

“The welcome here is uh, a little less than warm.”

Pierce caught your attention again, trying to turn his head to look around Thor to where you were, though Thor’s grip didn’t let up.

“Ah, you’re right as always, Y/N,” Pierce continued. “But you did just put in some of the worst and most powerful beings from the destroyed part of the prison _with_ them.”

He paused, his dark beady eyes boring into you.

Before he spoke again a floor-shaking rumble sounded just beyond the slowly closing door, Thor and Steve’s eyes shot there, as yours and Pierces’ remained locked together. Something clicked there in that brief moment, knowing the God of Strength and Sovereign Rule would have the fortitude to turn just about anyone with a deceitful heart to his side, whether personally or by way of his followers. And what better place to find such people than Tartarus.

“So, now they’re _all_ mine.”

Faster than you could speak a word into your comm, chaos broke loose.

The thick metal door was a mere sliver away from being shut and securely locked, but it wasn’t just fast enough.

The thundering sound of countless running bodies hit the thing and it didn’t just fly off the hinges but took large stone chunks of the wall with it. The metal and debris crashed through the room, slamming against Steve who was thrown to the other side under the crushing weight of the door.

A swarm came rushing in, stampeding over each other and over-taking the small room like a tidal wave. Thor was sent careening off Pierce by the wave that hit him square in the chest collided thick shoulder first into you. The two of you fell over each other on the ground, your injured side throbbing as it hit the metal corner of the door that pinned Steve.

As bodies and hands and teeth and screams of rage were thrown down on you,  grabbing and pulling and stabbing you, you felt the instant reaction of your own body. The room was plunged into ice and frost as your skin turned cold and eyes went glacial blue, the rage in you anything but cold.

You snapped your teeth, a growl of effort erupting from you that was enough to throw the prisoners off of you, slamming them back against the high walls that stretched up. The command you exuded forced the innumerable masses within the small room to their knees or kept them pinned, but more flooded and trampled over them in a constant, unending stream.

Sirens were blaring and alarms screaming as prisoners began to break through barriers and door and cells to release more bodies, not just in this section but every section.

Swiftly you turned, grabbing the metal door in one hand and Thor’s arm in the other. You shoved the god under with a bruised Steve, dropping the door on top of them.

Turning back you held your arms out, black lightning streaming from your hands, piercing eardrums and shooting at the speed of light down the corridor to the streaming masses. Screams were barely heard above the roar of your power sparking out in terrible, dark retribution. Bodies turned to dust and disintegrated into nothing as you forced the prisoners into oblivion.

The deafening crackling stopped as the dark lightning did, red blaring alarms not ceasing. The crash of metal on stone sounded behind you, two blonde gods freeing themselves and hastily rising from the floor.

“Where’s Pierce?” rasped Steve in the sudden quiet, though rumbling like earthquakes could be felt through the floor.

He came up beside you, holding his side with face covered in dirt and blood above the blooming bruises emerging.

Pierce was alive- of that much you could sense- but you couldn’t answer. Not just yet.

It took valuable seconds, but you had no choice. You only _had_ mere seconds before whatever decision you made may be too late. In a single moment you had to decide what was the priority, because you would not be able to handle it all:

Contain the hundreds of thousands of prisoners freed, before it became millions or more.

Save Tony, Natasha, and Clint if they were still alive.

Find Pierce in the masses and restrain him or crush him into oblivion.

Secure the Zone Four before this madness released beings you would _never_ win over.

“Come on,” you said for the second time that day, voice deadly and determined and broken, turning to a door on your right and ripping it open yourself, not waiting for it to do so on its own.

The decision was made and you had to follow it through, holding out until your forces could get here.

The only thought that distantly ran through your head as the three of you took off through Tartarus was that wherever Bucky was, at least he wasn’t _here_.

* * *

 

**Y/N: Are you there?**

The words came through the screen like a beacon of hope, the little neon blue-hued letters dancing across the holographic screen, in the near pitch-dark office.

Bucky gripped his chest, a cool zing of relief crackling down his spine as he was drawn into those words like a moth to a flame.

_She’s okay. We’re okay._

“Veronica, send a message back,” Bucky said quickly, voice cracked with that relief and stumbling over himself in urgency as he braced himself against your office desk. “Tell her I’m here at home and ask if she’s okay. Ask where.”

The AI chimed at attention. _Finally_. He had been trying to contact you or get answers from someone or do _something_ , but at every turn he was blocked access. The Wraiths, Cerberus, and who knows what other creatures may respond to him now, but it seemed Veronica still held a grudge. She had had this place on lockdown and he had been stuck here for hours, trying to know more and getting no answers.

Bucky figured from your text you must be here, in the Underworld. Maybe you were on your way back to him already? Maybe this was all finally over. Pierce could be locked up, Bucky himself would finally be safe, and you would be loved by him so deeply and completely it practically made him shake to think about it. Gods, he couldn’t wait to hold you again.

Cerberus had ripped him away the second things had gone to shit back at the tower, with security details breaking in and not so much looking to keep him secure but take him down. It had been a whirlwind of fists and fighting and blood, but Cerberus didn’t let the fight happen long. He had grabbed Bucky and sped away faster than Bucky could even blink. Bucky had tried to get him to turn back but it was no use; the stubborn dog wouldn’t disobey you.

Another flash of colour lit up the dark office, dancing on its glossy surfaces.

**Y/N: We’re all okay, more or less. Worried about you. Heading to Tartarus now.**

His brows furrowed and he knew he should be feeling fear at the word of the prison, conjuring up the words whispered and threatened to him over his life. But he was worried. Worried for you. And there was something else that felt wrong, nagging at him.

Why had it taken so long to get to Tartarus? Was the fight really that bad? What had happened exactly?

He didn’t know what or why, but he wasn’t going to sit on his hands.

“Tell her I’m coming.” 

Walking determined through the dimly lit house he knew so well- the one that smelled like you and felt of you- Bucky took wide open hallways to the garage. 

It was expansive, more like a small airplane hangar, with a multiple of flashy cars in all makes, models, and styles. Bucky wove between the shining vehicles, each one more impressive than the last. He didn’t so much care about that, just which one would get him to you quickest.

“Veronica, what’s the fast car here?”

A hollow beep sounded some ten cars away, the headlights flashing. Bucky bee-lined for it and slipped into the driver’s seat, that new car smell wafting around him. With a press of the button, the car revved to life.

“Take me to Tartarus,” Bucky spoke in the quiet interior. The touch screen on the dash lit up, the destination of Tartarus locked in place and route mapped.

With a screech of the tires, Bucky floored it out of the garage and into the Underworld.


	19. Into the Deep

“So where in hell are we?”

You gave Tony a sideways glance, hunched over with your palms flat on the large piece of stone rubble.

The place you were in could only really be described as a cavern. Both the height and length of it stretched beyond what you would see in the darkness, with the white emergency lights bolted to the walls like bright stars shining in the blackness of space. The destruction and darkness extended out for what looked like kilometres, tiny white pinpricks all but lost in the blackness.

On the ground that light only shone as a faint pale glow, softly outlining massive sharp chunks of what used to be concrete walls and fortified cells, now ripped open and crushed and mangled. They had tumbled recklessly to all corners of this cavern, now held still to form a jagged and dangerous terrain. It was as though a meteorite had plummeted into Tartarus and exploded the very structure with nothing but debris, metal, and rocks remaining. Some of those pieces had risen up like small mountains and others like statues, half shrouded in darkness and giving this place an air that something was hidden in those shadows.

The echo of footsteps and heavy breaths were lost here in the rubble and glow and blackness, barely going beyond the loose circle of gods that were with you who were shuffled into a small clearing. It was like Tartarus was particularly oppressive here, lashing out against its own destruction. Light and sound were diminished and squashed under the weight of this place.

Nonetheless, it was the best place to force your way into with the pack of you needing a moment to regroup, particularly _without_ the threat of enraged, escaped prisoners.

Natasha and Clint were sitting hip to hip quietly on a flat slab of raised concrete. Clint’s head was down with an arm pressed to his side that had been bleeding and not just a small amount. He hid his face from view as he looked to the ground, covering up his pained expression from that rather hard hit in the madness you all escaped from just minutes ago.

Nat beside him looked with weary eyes to her surroundings, hands held tightly on her knees, red hair loose in the pale white glow. A gold sheen was down the side of her face, blood now somewhat dried from a rather deep cut to her temple.

Steve had less blood and more bruises splayed across his face. He was covered in dirt like you all were, eyes looking to the cast shadows for enemies before huffing down on the ground. He leaned his back against an angled piece on concrete that used to be wall of a cell, eyes on the leader of the living realm in front of him.

Thor paced a ways out and back, unable to sit still despite the brief reprieve from the onslaught of the dead you had all just fought through. Hands were on his hips and a pained weariness in his eyes. You knew that look. And whatever he was thinking, all this wasn’t his fault.

It was quite clearly yours.

“We’re in the third containment level,” you said, looking back down to the dirt and grit over the rough stone surface you were leaning on, though you processed none of it really. Your mind was distant with the growing throb in your side that should not be there. “Zone Three, for short.”

“I assume it’s usually less… exploded,” Tony remarked, looking around.

He took a spot just above Steve, the metal of his suit scratched and split in places, just like his jaw and lip. Those chocolate brown eyes of his was about the only true warmth in this place you could see. You briefly wondered how long it would be before this place or situations stomped it out for good.

“Significantly so, yes,” you said, trying to straighten up but thinking better of it.

The thought of why you were feeling this way hadn’t fully entered your mind yet, too clouded with that throbbing feeling the stab to your side made and too wound up in this complete _disaster_ of a situation. There was too much to think about and think through and your decisiveness had slightly faltered under the strain of what this chaos could mean. Particularly for those with you now.

“How could Pierce have planned this, Y/N?” Thor asked, no blame or judgment in his voice. It was a voice that was struggling to understand.

Your powers were still dialled up and showed in your eyes and on your skin, and though your armour still on, it somehow didn’t seem like enough. You turned to look at him, an almost sad or guilty look to that ice blue of your eyes. It matched his own. It was the silent exchange of two rulers who had failed and had failed in a _brutally_ spectacular fashion.

“I’m not sure he did,” you said, hand going to your side reflexively as you stood, walking back closer to the other gods. The cool of your frost covered skin did not quell the heat radiating from it and you shifted uncomfortably in your fitted black armour. Confusion pulled at a corner of your mind for a second, but you ignored it. “He’s smart- dangerously so- and skilled, but I really don’t think this was specifically planned. How could it be?”

“Well, it’s a lot to happen so much in his favour,” Steve remarked. “You can’t think we’re that unlucky?”

“Or stupid,” Natasha muttered, a bitter edge to her words though it seemed rather self-deprecating if anything. She was not one to be outsmarted or outdone by anyone.

“He knew he’d lose to Thor in his own territory especially with me there, so he made getting captured easy,” you said, eyes narrowing into the darkness between gods as you thought. “Naturally he’d assume he’d be taken here, because where else could he go? Converting the prisoners to his side wouldn’t be a problem at all, the draw of escape too sweet to pass up,” You distractedly reached down into a small hidden pocket at your hip. “He’s taken bets on the outcome and is controlling the chaos. He has a plan for every scenario, meanwhile we’re playing catch-up from the sidelines and _losing_.”

“We’ve been stuck reacting to him, instead of the other way around,” Tony agreed with his jaw clenching hard.

The hand in your pocket came up empty, and distracted you rubbed your fingers together. You abandoned your brief thought of finding your phone in that pocket, not sure if you felt better about having lost it in the chaos or not.

If you had it you would have felt compelled to make a call, and that call would have sounded like a goodbye. It probably also would have spurred the one person you did not want mixed up in this right into the middle of it.

You pushed the vision of his face, the feel of his soft gaze, and the scent of his deep florals and rich earth tone from your mind. Instead you let the cold and dust and grit of where you were take over your senses again.

“So what’s his next play?” Nat asked. The determined sound of her voice was raspy with exhaustion and brought your focus back.

Their fight against the inmates hadn’t been as easy as yours, Thor’s, and Steve’s. Nat’s trio barely was able to hold off until reached them, crashing into their antechamber where they tried to hold up against the tidal wave of escapees. But at least you had found them alive, if not battling tooth and nail under the crushing weight of hundreds whose only goal was to tear them apart.

A distant swell of gratefulness hit you that you got to them in time, even if just to delay the growing inevitable outcome here. Maybe it would have been smarter- or even merciful- to leave them to that fate over what was likely coming, but you had made the decision to save them and there was no going back now.

“Killing us,” you replied with a silent heavy sigh and raise to your eyebrow. “He wants to rule, doesn’t he? And the Underworld as a whole has a couple billion inhabitants, the worst of which are in here with us.”

“But he can’t control everyone,” Steve pointed out, struggling a bit to stand under the strain of stiff and bruised muscles. Even in the shadowy clearing you could see its deep purple tinges blot his skin. “He might want to rule, but he doesn’t have the authority.”

“I don’t think he needs to just yet,” you said a bit lifelessly as your words held a dull bitterness. “He just needs to get us out of the way and use the numbers he has now to subdue the rest when it comes to that. The rage and chaos locked up here will take us down. Who else could oppose him?”

Your face grew dark in the dim cave you were in, a certain thought tightening the muscles under your skin and crushing you about to your bones. The spark it caused sent an unwelcome and cold ripple down your spine.

Pierce wanted to incite chaos and to control it, even to his own end. And if you were able to oppose him and show any signs you were somehow winning against him, things could turn even worse…

When you spoke it was slow and measured.

“The nuclear option is he unleashes the fourth level containment,” you said.

There was a pause, the eyes of everyone on you as what that meant sunk in.

“He would die too,” Thor said just as slowly as you had, but hadn’t yet connected the dots. He would know as well as every god did who was in Zone Four and the destruction that would follow. And it wouldn’t be contained to one realm, but all.

“I know, but can you confidently say he’d rule that out?” you said, a hand going to your hip and digging in. “If there’s no way for him to win, you can bet that he would still do his best to make sure we would lose, and in the most painful way possible.”

“Mutually assured destruction?” Nat asked, though by the look in her eyes it wasn’t so much a question as it was a confirmation.

“He’s been ready to throw himself at the wolves up until this point,” Steve said with a grim look to you. “Why stop now.”

Pierce had risked so much to get here, and you didn’t think there was a limit to what he would be willing to give up. That meant the group of you would have to think in the same terms. Would have to understand exactly what they very well could need to sacrifice.

Their very futures and very lives.

“Then you all have to make a choice,” you said, clear voice rising above the stifling silence. It was your ruler voice, with little emotion to be found. You thought that putting on that persona would make this easier, but it didn’t.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked first.

“Look, cards on the table here?” you looked to the five in front of you pointedly. “We’re in a tough spot-”

“Lightly put,” Tony remarked.

“Very much so,” you said, that edge of sadness creeping into your tone as it dropped in clarity and volume. The words you were about to speak were weighing you down, but you tried to focus.

You pushed your palm deeper into the wound on your side, the golden blood continuing to spill over your hand feeling unnaturally boiling on your flesh. Again, a tinge of confusion pricked your thoughts, but a flash of understanding followed. You swallowed, again ignoring it and bucking up before launching into what would not be your favourite conversation.

“You can’t fight the dead, not like I can, not here,” you said, stating what they already knew and could feel. “Your abilities are limited here, and there’s no changing that. It’ll only get far worse the deeper we go.”

“But we’re still going to fight,” Steve said in an obvious tone, questioning where you were going with this.

“Against hundreds that will turn to thousands, then millions?” you questioned right back. “There are a lot of prisoners here, dating back longer than we’ve been alive. And it took _three weeks_ with the full power of my realm to get them under control that time. And that was with _two_ containments broken, not the three that are loose now. And _not_ with a leader that is uniting a vast majority of them while he’s here and actively working against all of us.”

You looked to the group, hoping this was sinking in before carrying on.

“What’s between us and the help we need, is all of them-”

“And you’re hurt,” came Clint’s voice for the first time.

Eyes were on him as he turned up his head, drawn and white with pain. Healing wasn’t an easy thing in Tartarus; this part of the realm enjoying the agony of others and took silent joy in drawing it out. Though it shouldn’t be like that for someone like you. And yet…

“I don’t know why,” you all but whispered, eyes locked to his as the others watched the blood spill out from your hand in a fresh wave. “Whatever they did shouldn’t be affecting me… Not like this.”

It had been simple; just a stab to the side during the fight to capture Pierce at Tony’s party. You _should_ have healed by now. You shouldn’t be feeling more and more drained. But the blood spilt out of you all the more with every passing minute and it felt like lava, burning your cold frosted skin.

You knew the wound wasn’t closing; it was only getting worse.

“You can’t hold off the whole of hell and the things locked up in Zone Four alone,” Natasha said, a warning in her voice.

“Not like this I don’t think,” you said, the wrongness of that burning as much as your side. You clenched from hissing in pain, not knowing when or even if this would get better. You were doubting it more with every second. “And I’d never be able to defeat the worst ones here if they got out of Zone Four. No denying that.”

You stood a little straighter, chin down as you took a deep breath.

“But I _can_ hold them off,” you said, putting on false confidence like armour. “Maybe give you enough time until the other Underworld gods get here and get through all this to rescue you. You can hold out here, barricade yourselves in.”

“Y/N, for you that’s _suicide_ ,” Tony said, shock and pain clear in his voice.

“Well, that what I’m asking you to do, aren’t I?” you snapped, just as pained. “The options you have here are few. I can’t get you out _and_ beat Pierce to Zone Four, if that’s even where he’s going. But you need me to do that; you won’t make it on your own. So you could stay here and hope killing you isn’t Pierce’s top priority, which I gotta say, with the amount of people he has backing him, he can just send them after you while he goes off. So either you try your luck against them, or you go with me and _also_ probably die against creatures that I can’t fight even at my _best_.”

Steve spoke first and immediately, taking a step closer to you. “We’re not leaving you now, Y/N.”

You admired him and the rest for this bravery, but also their self-sacrificing stupidity.

You tilted your head with a joyless smile on your lips. “Well, honestly, I think you should, Steve.”

“We’re _not_ leaving you,” Thor reiterated, stepping closer too. “This happened because of my ignorance. Because I couldn’t see the snake growing in my council.”

“Thor,” you said lowly. “Let’s be realistic about what happens if you come with me. Clint is hurt. You can’t wa-”

“I’m fine,” said the archer in question, standing stiffly.

“Clint, you need to stay put until Hela or some-”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, cutting you off as he grabbed his bow propped beside him and slung it over his arm. “We’re going to see this through. Right to the depths of hell, it looks like.”

“Can the shades spot Pierce?” Nat asked, jaw hard next to her companion as she joined him. She might not voice it, but she didn’t like Clint’s refusal, just the same as you. But like you, it seemed there would be no point in arguing. “Maybe if we got to him we could end this?”

“They haven’t, not surprisingly,” you said, your comm snug in your ear still quiet. You didn’t need to know that this was getting worse; you could feel it. The shades would inform you once the other gods got here, but until then there wasn’t much to say that you couldn’t guess or feel. “They won’t be fighting or searching or guarding; their only directive is containment when there’s a breakout. They have to keep everyone inside these walls, at any cost.”

“With us trapped with them,” Tony said ruefully.

You simply nodded. Gods, you didn’t want this for _any_ of them. Looking out to the weathered and weary group before you, you saw nothing but gritty determination. Again, t made your heart swell and ache at the same time for their impending fate. It looked to be the same one waiting for you too.

“So, if we’re picking our spot to die, let’s make it the most badass place here,” Tony said, false and twisted optimism not quite hiding the fear. “You know the way to Zone Four?”

You waited a moment before nodding, choosing not to fight them on this. You would have a bigger fight you’d need to save your energy for. And if you had to die, which seemed more and more likely, you would rather not do it alone.

“We’re close enough to it,” you said. “But we need to move fast.”

“How’d you know someone hasn’t gotten there already?” Tony said, standing with the others.

“Trust me,” you said pointedly, turning around to face the long path of darkness in this crumbled and desolate cavern.  “We would know.”

* * *

 

The descent deeper into Tartarus was not one you had made many times, but you knew the route by heart. It was impossible to forget this place, no matter how hard you tried or how many nightmares it crept its way into.

Most of Tartarus was modern and in fact most of the Underworld was too. The West Gate you had entered through was set-up as part fortress and part airport, with security checks, customs lines, border patrol officers and military officials monitoring everyone. The downtown had sleek skyscrapers and clean grey granite sidewalks and was the business hub of the gods and goddesses running the day-to-day activities.

Your realm was a picture of efficiency and sleek modernity.

All except this place in Tartarus.

It was ancient and timeless, constructed eons ago. Breaching through the tens of locked and vaulted doors as you went down level after level took old magic and ancient knowledge. Once through there was no elevator or lift, just another spiralling maze of ever descending stairs.

You took the group down and down and down those steps, turning from poured concrete to slab concrete to old stone. The stone turned from smooth and grey to black and worn. Eventually that oily black stone of Tartarus was underfoot, the grooves in the steps deep and smooth from centuries of wear.

The air had turned from cool, to cold, to damp, to something else entirely. It was almost unnatural. Thick and warm and heavy, air only got denser and more bitter tasting. As you went further and further it only got worse. It settled in your lungs and on your skin, weighing you down and constricting you. It almost felt like it was squeezing you and seemed to make your wound bleed out all the more, the atmosphere thirsty for the fresh blood of something new.

In the time it took travelling deeper, the stab had become gaping and festering, jagged and swollen and showing your once hidden organs and muscles below that should have remained unseen. Not even the spread palm of your hand could hide it from the others now. It melted away your fitted black armour just as it did your flesh and left you only more and more exposed.

You couldn’t deny that this must have been part of a carefully constructed plan by Pierce. It would have been absolutely crucial to wound you or make you weaker, as you were near indestructible in your realm and could overpower the very forces he wanted to control.

You knew the direction of where this was heading, you just didn’t know exactly how far Pierce had planned on taking it. You could guess though.

“You need to stop,” Natasha whispered.

She spoke through the heaviness of the atmosphere as she took your elbow lightly from behind. It caused you to stop, leaning against the oily, dripping greenish walls of the tight black stairwell. The thick liquid dribbled down your arm.

“No, I don’t think I can,” you said, voice thin. “I don’t think I have the time to waste.”

You could practically hear Natasha’s mind working, wondering if that meant because Pierce was on his way, or because your wound itself was making you run out of time. Either way, against what you knew to be her better judgement, she didn’t ask and you pushed on into the darkness with the others right behind you.

Eventually your feet hit something more like dirt and gravel, the stairs straightening out to a landing that led to a jagged opening in the dripping walls.

It opened up to what looked like a vast ancient city of sorts, but not built on the ground. It was as though someone had carved it up the walls of this canyon-like pit, stretching up endlessly and down endlessly. There was no end to it on the black horizon, swallowed up in the deep. Stretching across the vast gaping hole that separated the sides were bridges and stairs by the hundreds, ascending and descending.

The only light was a misty, eerie red glow somewhere below, crawling up the sides. It was just enough to see by, but you would have rather been left in darkness instead of that eerie, unnatural glow.

“We don’t make it easy for a reason,” you said, answering the unspoken question as the group went to the edge of the landing and the precipice of this pit, marvelling at this place.

Thor looked to peer over the edge, the fringe of his red cape just brushing passed the ground to hang in the open air.

With jarring speed you threw a hand to his chest and pushed back, taking the god a couple quickly shuffled steps back and leaving a bloody golden handprint on his chest. He looked at you confused with breath beating hard at the sudden movement in such a silent still place.

“Don’t get too close to the edge,” you said, a warning to everyone, shuffling back yourself. The temptation coming from such closed space to such an open one made people drop their guard, letting their curiosity take over in such a unique place. It was a false and deceitful temptation, and Tartarus would take advantage of it to the person’s doom. “You might not be able to see its teeth, but trust me when I say, Tartarus has them.”

You turned to your left, your free hand barely brushing against the now dry crumbly rock wall as you all but disappeared behind a sharp corner. The gods followed you, finding you carefully stepping down the narrowest, steepest steps here. They were carved into the stone wall, descending down at a terrifying angle to the red misty glow below on one side, and the black rough wall on the other.

You followed the path as it was laid out in your mind, ignoring wide welcoming bridges and stable sturdy stairways alike, opting for this thin and less savoury one instead. It led you down and around and then up, weaving and hugging along the wall.

This was not the most convenient way to get into where you definitely did not want to be, yet had to be. But it was the quickest.

Not quick enough it seemed though, catching yourself as your foot slipped out from the step that only barely fit the tips of your toes. Steve immediately grabbed your waist from behind, his hand immediately as slick with blood as yours was upon touching you.

While he grabbed you, you clutched at the grimy black stone for support. The oiliness of it mixed with the flaming feel of the blood that had been burning you. Your skin had turned red-ish and angry-looking now, numbed to the heat of it, while the rest of you was ice cold.

“You know all those jokes about me being some kind of corpse?” you said, trying desperately to catch your haggard breath.

Even Clint was better able to keep up you saw as you briefly looked behind you. His hand was on Nat in front of him and Tony’s hand was on his shoulder periodically from behind too, steadying the wounded man. Thor took the rear of this line, his bulky frame squeezed against the narrow passage.

Your injury was slowing you down- body and mind- and you were holding them all up. You railed against the lethargy and the temptation to slide into now crippling pain, speaking to focus yourself again and to drown out the scream of pain your body was shouting at you.

“C’mon,” you said quietly again, moving forward up the steps with a grunt. “I know you’ve all heard them. The others make fun of me all the time; it’d be hard not to hear it.”

You didn’t let them answer, gripping a course knob of rock as you tried to help pull yourself up, the next dirt landing only steps away.

“Well, I think they were right, in a way anyway,” you mused, wobbly feet reaching that wide open landing with a narrow bridge jutting out from it, able to maybe fit two people side by side. You eased back against the wall, letting the others come up and get solid footing again. “I think maybe I’m a bit more of the Underworld- of the dead- than I wanted to believe.”

You held up your hand to your face, that ominous red glow coming from below shining off of the gold blood that drenched your skin. It almost sparkled, a dark and terrible glint in this cavern.

“Whatever this was that pierced me, my cold dead body and heart does _not_ like it,” you murmured before looking over to them. “I think something with life was involved? Fountain of Youth maybe? Or some twisted spell with ambrosia or the like.”

“Will it kill you?” Steve’s voice was low and quiet, eyes holding back a reserved and guarded look. One of pain. They were impossibly blue his eyes, and reminded you of someone you couldn’t so much as speak about now.

You willed yourself to stay standing and not slip down the wall. To keep your eyes open. To keep breathing.

“Probably,” you shrugged, really not knowing. Considering the circumstances you doubted the answer actually matter though. “Maybe. But let’s see if I live long enough for it to kill me.”

You nodded past the group, biting your tongue against a groan as you walked forward, feet carrying you however reluctantly. Both Steve and Thor held back what was on the tip of their tongues, looking to each other with knowing eyes, though it didn’t escape your notice. They were all beat up and exhausted, but you were far, far worse.

The wound was growing, a heated sweat dripping from your once cold skin, and eyes becoming more unfocused and erratic under that glacial blue. You couldn’t catch your breath. Had trouble catching your footing. Blood coated you from your hip right down to your leg and up your torso as it drenched you, practically glowing with gold.

But there was nothing they could do, no one else that could take them to where they were heading, and no one more capable to do what needed to be done. You knew it and they knew it.

So there was nothing more to say, their words dying on their tongue.

Steve walked up behind you as you took the first steps across the narrow black stone bridge to the other side of the pit. His hand hovered above the small of your back and was ready to catch you should your feet wobble too far.

“I’ve got you, I’m right behind you,” he said quietly in your ear. The others followed suit behind you both. “You won’t fall.”

You felt a stab to your heart, letting your face fall as there was no one ahead of you to see. For a brief, weak moment you let the emotions boiling under your skin rise to the surface, spilling out like blood and just as painful.

“But I did fall, didn’t I?” you said to him, barely a whisper. “I fell for him _so_ hard.”

“You’ll see him again, Y/N,” he replied, volume matching yours as this quiet anguished moment was kept secret from the others. “We both will. This isn’t the end.”

But the end of this journey was drawing nearer and nearer. You were steps away from the end of the stone bridge and the final descent down. When your foot touched the other side you stopped, halting the progress behind you as everyone did the same.

There was something there.

It was a rumble, sounding low and vibrating and distant. Almost like you could feel it in your bones.

Or maybe it was in your fuzzy, torment-ridden head?

But then it sounded again, ringing a blaring alarm inside your head and waking up a flood of adrenalin you didn’t think you had left.

“Y/N?” Natasha asked behind you, her and the rest for one sweet moment oblivious. “Why’d you stop?”

But her question was immediately answered. 

Everyone snapped to attention when that ominous rumble happened again, hearing it for the first time as the sound grew. Their eyes were locked to the endless black hole that served as a meager gateway down to the centre of this place.

Your words were fast and low and gripping desperately onto something resembling focus.

“I need you to turn around and _run_ ,” you said eyes ahead, unable for a moment to move them from the dark doorway just on the landing in front of you as the rumbling escape from it. “I need you to go the _exact_ same way and do not stop. Not for anything or anyone.”

A chorus of arguments and objections rose in the throats of everyone, but you didn’t hear a word. Not of Tony’s citing suicide or Steve saying you weren’t going to do this alone. Not Natasha reasoning your chances were better with the team or Thor saying this was his responsibility to help make right. You couldn’t hear anything above the every increasing growl and rumble in the distance.

“Don’t think this a _request_ ,” you snapped unyieldingly.

You turned your body, arm pinned to your gaping side. Your eyes were filled with a hundred thoughts and a thousand feelings and one single solitary fear.

You looked each one of them in the eye and spoke with harsh honesty.

“If you stay, I will kill you myself,” you said to them. “And I mean that.”

“Y/N you c-”

“You’re not-”

“Don’t think we’d fall fo-”

A shocking blast of cold gripped them as your power flared and black lightning shone like dark sparks your eyes. You were called to the groan in the deep, your abilities rising to the surface to answer that call.

“Don’t mistake this mercy as malice,” you said, your voice somehow not cracking under the strain as too much power began to flood you, too many emotions took hold of you, and too much agony began to split your body apart. “You are my friends so that is why I would kill you myself, before anything else down here could kill or torment you beyond the end of time. Please, just go.”

Another rumble sounded, shaking the walls of the carved abandoned city in this pit. It sounded like a mountain crumbling or a terrible, deep wailing and was enough to shake the very ground you stood on. You could feel it crawl across your skull and rattle your teeth like they were being drilled, a sharp and wrong buzzing beginning to jolt every nerve inside you.

Fear flowed in from the direction of that sound, hitting the group faster than your cold had. It stunned them for a moment, stealing their breath out of their lungs.

Something was waking up. 

Something was being released.

The sound happened again, this time like you were at the foothills of an erupting volcano. The red glow below you grew brighter, engulfing your companions in crimson and adding an edge of horror to their pain and indecision.

“He’d never forgive us,” Steve said, voice carrying the weight of his words through the clamorous noise as it continued to assault everyone’s senses.

“Then he will lose _everyone_ ,” you whispered back, pain in your eyes threatening to spill out with your building tears. “Don’t do that to him, Steve. Please _don’t_ abandon him here alone like I have too.”

“This is folly!” Thor shouted to you above the cacophony from his position at the end of the line.

But you shook your head at him.

It wasn’t stupidity that made this decision.

It was grief.

You looked between the gods here, heart breaking as the herald of doom thundered around and through you. That alarm bell in you kept ringing through your veins, shaking you to move and end this threat.

“You can’t help me here; it’s too late now,” you looked back to Steve, blinking away tears as his blue eyes reminded you of the one you really longed to see, just one last time. “And if I fail, there is nothing and no one to stop Pierce. Be my second line. Do this for me and give everyone a chance to survive, please.”

If they could just give in and do this, it would be simple for them.

The shades would get them out eventually. If they could get back to Zone Three and stay hidden and safe, they would be rescued. Hela would secure the prison again and put things back right… Then Steve would break the news of your death to your husband.

You could imagine everything else clearly in your head, just not his grief. You didn’t want too. You just couldn’t picture him here in the Underworld, ruling this realm alone, isolated and torn apart with the loss of you. 

But he would be safe, wouldn’t he?

Somehow that didn’t seem like enough. Not for someone who deserved the world. Someone you gave your entire world too. Now this realm would seem like a prison for him, just as awful and grim and draining as Tartarus.

But doing this could mean saving him from death. And the only thing you could try and do now was keep Zone Four under control and stop what was being unleashed. If it wasn’t too late.

You paused, the bridge beginning to crumble under their feet in small pieces, then larger chunks as sound and terror crashed down as the din of the destruction started to take hold around you.

Thor spoke, his expression shifting to something oddly soft but just as determined as everyone you were facing. A flare of frustration broke through in you, wanting to force the lot of them out of this deathtrap.

“We did not come down all this way to abandon you here,” he said, voice only just carrying above the noise. “Now, you may try and get us to go, but we’ll just find another way.”

“Do you want us to get lost down here?” Clint echoed, somehow with a bit of good-natured (and foolish) challenge in his eyes. “Cause we’ll do it. Then you’ll have to scour this whole bizarro place and look under every creepy rock for us.”

“If you leave us,” Tony said before you could get a word in. “I swear to all the gods we’ll completely destroy this place. I’m talking a full teardown and rebuild, with bright flashy colours and _lots_ of panache. You’re gonna hate it, trust me.”

For a moment you felt the tears pricking at your eyes, not sure if it was the delirium of pain that hit you, or the frustration at their stubbornness, or the fact of their unwavering and touching loyalty to see this- and you- through to the finish. 

“If I ruled you, you all would be _so_ fired,” you said, giving them one more out and hoping they would take it.

“Sorry Y/N,” Thor said with a twirl of his hammer, as though he weren’t on the precipice of the worst place in hell and asking to go deeper. “They’re mine.”

“Who do you think we learned it from?” Tony joked.

And you let them. You let them joke and make light and cover up their fear. It was their way to cope, even if it crushed your already broken heart. It had been for you and your benefit, and you hoped that their resolve would be enough.

All you could do now was grit your teeth and turn quickly if not unevenly on your heels, silence following as you felt the grave and fearful emotions of your companions take hold of them yet again. You choked on the thick air around you as you pushed forward into the last black stairwell, making your vision fuzzy which caught in your mind, the haze taking hold again.

So you kept your eyes closed as you walked then sprinted forward, unwilling and unwanting to see as muscle memory drove you down to the rotten, petrified heart of Tartarus.


	20. The Flames and the Frost

The ground floor of Tartarus was a rough, uneven patchwork of hardened molten rock, black and thick. Swaths of lava cut through the surface, its crimson sickly bubbles bursting as its flowing river released a thick mist of incinerating heat. Waterfalls of pure fire fell from holes in the cavern roof, catching and sizzling in the air.

It should make you feel sweltering- near overcome with a skin-roasting fever- but you couldn’t feel any of it. Nothing in this realm or the next came close to the tormenting blaze of your wounded side. The sheer unadulterated pain was searing as though it was not merely made to weaken but burn you alive.

“Y/N,” came the strained voice of Natasha somewhere behind you. It was a high sound, contrasting the deep plume of sound that rumbled through this place.

You turned to the voice, realizing how slumped your body was as your hand gripping your knee to keep from falling down on the hot black floor. Your other arm almost glued with blood to your side, as though trying to snuff out the scorching embers you imagined embedded right in your gut.

As you looked to the group trailing in your unsteady wake, you saw Clint on the ground, struggling to keep his eyes open. This was the worst the Underworld could be for anyone, and the aggressive drain of this place was just about the strongest. Meant to slow down those that may escape, it was a wonder you hadn’t lost more gods on the journey through this molten path. Everyone, including yourself, felt practically mortal here, and the feeling was only going to get worse.

“Stay here,” you slurred, turning back ahead of you. You didn’t have the luxury of coddling or caring for a dying man. Not when everyone’s lives were on the line. Not when you were so close. “You can’t come any closer. Barton won’t make it if he does.”

“Stay with him,” Thor said to Natasha, his face as sweat covered as the rest.

From your distance you couldn’t see the redness of his skin or blistering of his hands. You couldn’t see the pained determination on Steve and Tony as they moved forward towards you, gritting their teeth as their weakened, struggling group was now two people short. You couldn’t and didn’t want to see it. You could only keep moving.

The overwhelming assault of your surroundings was a familiar one and should want to bring you to your knees, but the shock and haze of anguish was all you could feel. The pain was a tide that ebbed and flowed, bringing you back to reality only to snap it away again. And the shots of reality were getting shorter and farther in between.

As you walked forward, blinking uneven and so slicked with blood you couldn’t feel the wetness anymore, you felt yourself slipping. Blackness tinge your peripherals, clawing their way to try and overtake your vision.

_Just push through! C’mon!_

You didn’t know if you said that out loud, but you tried to listen, waking yourself up enough to push the darkness away. Your vision was still hazy though, like the billowing heat radiating from your body shrouded your eyes in a cloud of thick, heavy smog. Everything was blurred and shifting in your line of vision. You felt your footsteps struggle and sway.

But blinking through the heated fog, you could see the door, thick and ancient and towering from the ground to the ceiling of this place not fifty metres in front of you. This door, the last one to this final and ancient cell block, was the last barrier. This could almost be over. You could finish what needed to be finished, then slip away into terror and nothingness as you dreamed of the person you loved holding you.

The ominous fear was at odds with your resolve, and the force of the two colliding pushed you enough to run ahead. You practically body-slammed the door, blood-drenched hands running along the rough stone of it, trying to find by feel the smaller normal sized door inset in the large one.

You didn’t think when you found it, not to collect yourself for what could be waiting inside and not to see if your friends managed to keep up behind you, just shoved your hand into a shallow hole in the stone and tried to find the knob. It required blood to open, but that was hardly something you could keep from dripping off you anyway. The blood dribbled down your fingers and hand and Tartarus drank it in through the stone. The door sounded out with a crack as it unlocked and your hand grasped the hidden knob inside.

With a wretch you pulled, trying to heave the stiff door open. You almost distantly could see a hand reach out from behind you to grab it, then another one, the presence of three men at your back all but lost on you. With the combined effort of you, Thor, Tony, and Steve the door screeched across the ground and opened up.

In a moment an unnatural cold smacked you that pierced you to your bones, and the dread which immediately followed hit just as deep.

You stumbled into the expansive cellblock, trying to blink away the pain and haze to see what was in front of you, but you didn’t have to look to know what was wrong.

“Close the cell doors!” you shouted to anyone still with you. You could barely breathe, air like volcanic ash filling your lungs and suffocating you. Instead of mingling with the ever-rising heat in your body, it was freezing and heavy.

The cell doors, all huge and made of the same black unyielding stone as what was all around you, were ajar, letting in the freezing air from the deep pits they held closed. The raging heat from the streams of lava and cascading fire all around this place served to keep away the deadly, deathly chill that rose up from those pits from spreading, used to offset the frigid hell the worst of the universe were trapped in. It immobilized them deep inside, suspended leagues below this opening in a frozen, torturous hell.

Besides the skin-cracking chill, all you could make out was the gaping maw of darkness that lined every hundred feet of this corridor, revealing open slits where the doors should be sealed shut. The darkness battled with the light from the fires while the frost spreading out battled with the heat.

But it was the sound that got to you. The wailings and groans and booms and brain-rattling rumbles coming up as the inhabitants trying to make the agonizing crawl out of the pits they were held prisoner in. Their ascent was shaking the ground as they did so; it was like the claws they dug into the pit walls was piercing you. You could practically feel them crawling up your side.

_They were coming, and they were close._

You threw yourself to the first cell, sinking to your knees before you even touched the thick stone vaulted door that was swung open. You crawled to it, groaning and panting before your hands connected with the stone that was burning with cold.

The flames of Tartarus kept that cold from overtaking the whole of the prison and realm, but touching that same cold made you scream out, the blaze of your gaping wound having spread to every extremity of your body and making it so much worse.

You heard the shouts from the others that entered, doing their best to close this containment, not needing more direction than that. Not that you could give them more. But they were gods that weren’t meant to be here and you could only hope they had the strength to get this done with you.

You screamed through the pain and the burn and the ice until with great protest and with a loud snap the cell door sealed shut, the sound from below immediately blocked out. But the din of rageful screams and wails continued. You moved to stand, trying near blind now to get to the next spot.

You carried yourself further down the corridor almost drunk with pain, as you threw yourself at door after door. You felt the pop and strain of your joints and muscles, felt the tear of your flesh as your core tightened with effort, felt the dread and terror drip from you like blood.

You paid no attention to either the others falling far behind you as their strength failed, or what was beyond you. The only focus was keeping yourself moving, against all odds and all torment.

You collapsed to your knees just in front of another door deep into the corridor, eyes threatening to roll back into your skull when you caught a glimpse of something.

Vaguely, you saw the shape of what almost looked like a figure in front of you.

You blinked hard, trying to stave off the oncoming unconsciousness that began to creep to the edge of your vision again, palms flat on the ground in front of you as you lifted your head to see a flash of something familiar in the haze.

It wasn’t something to fear- in fact the exact opposite- but you were more terrified than you had ever been in your entire existence as you made out the person.

“It… It can’t…” you stumbled, voice lost in the lack of oxygen. “It can’t be…”

You blinked hard again, this time to try and shake loose this mirage your torment was making you see. But it wasn’t a hallucination as the figure remained in front of you, kneeling just ahead on the rough ground. He was so close you could see the swirl of galaxies and seas in those blue eyes you had missed so desperately.

“Bucky?” you breathed, eyesight fading to black for a moment before he came back into view. Nothing made sense to you, your brain beyond proper function or control now. “Is this… how is this- am I… am I somehow… dead?”

“Not yet, Y/N,” came the familiar, dreadful voice of Pierce.

He came to your field of vision now, pale and sweaty and determined, and stood directly behind your husband. You heard a broken groan escape your lips, cracked and withered and heartbroken.

You heard your own voice chanting “no” over and over, sobbing and hating and soul dying in the thick air around you.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen…” you breathed, nail digging into the ground, trying to pull yourself closer to Bucky, though your energy had all but run out. “You can’t… you aren’t supposed to _be_ here.”

Despite the strain it would be on him, Pierce’s stance was so straight, voice so clear, eyes so focus as he felt the thrill of victory course through him. You on the other hand were the opposite: eyes bloody, body ruined and contorted with pain, hair wild and half-dead.

“I needed a way in, and no better than Underworld royalty- however untrained- to do it,” You wanted to see Bucky- want to feel him and save him- but you couldn’t focus long enough beyond a blurry half-image. “And the details of your injury were enough to spur him on to join me.”

You raised your head, doing your best to shake away the haze. But your eyes landed past Bucky to Pierce, seeing the dark silver gleam of a gun in his hand, pointed down to your kneeling Bucky.

“Time about we end this, Y/N,” Pierce said. You felt the stone ground hit your cheek, a brief moment of unconsciousness sending you face first to the floor, only to snap awake. You raised your head, bleary-eyed with teeth chattering.

“Open the door,” Pierce said low to Bucky, and you heard a strangled pained sound.

You had heard that sound before, the recollection weaving through the cobwebs of your mind. You remembered back when the two of you were outside your office, the same small sound filling your mind as the Winter Soldier began to fall away and Bucky took back over. That same heart-breaking gasp escaped from his lips as he saw the state he had put you in, bleeding and wounded.

Now a small part of your soul became light with hopeful levity that this _was_ Bucky and not the Winter Soldier with you. That Pierce hadn’t turned him and taken your husband away from you yet.

“ _No_ ,” Bucky said back, breathy and determined and broken.

But that feeling crashed hard. You immediately knew why Pierce hadn’t done it.

This would be so much harder and painful because it _was_ him.

“Either she dies here and passes not to the Underworld but into complete oblivion, slowly and horribly painful,” Pierce explained with nothing but unfeeling in his voice, confirming your darkest thoughts that this wound wouldn’t just kill you but you’d cease to exist at all. “Or you throw her into a cell and she lives… Tortured for eternity, sure. But alive.”

“Bucky,” you breathed, barely a hiss through your teeth as you felt your jaw go slack.

“And there’s always hope you can save her, isn’t there?” Pierce said, ignoring you.

Even you could hear the smug teasing in his tone, taunting the man the three of you knew would be turned to the Winter Soldier before this was over and forevermore under Pierce’s control.

But still, he was right- you would stay alive in the stasis that was Tartarus- but the pull and pain the pit would cause would indescribably horrifying. You would live it daily, on an unending loop. And if he was the Winter Soldier, there’d be no chance of Bucky saving you.

You could feel the muscles and bones in your body begin to spread from your head down, as your grip on life began to loosen.

But, by some small mercy and miracle, for the briefest of moments you saw him.

On his knees Bucky was hunched over, straining to get closer to you from where he was forced to stay, his arms stretched out to try and breach the distance he couldn’t cross. Bleeding and hurt, the blue of his eyes stood out in painful clarity as you could see his heart breaking, watching you die here before him. His body was tense and seized with sooty sweat-drenched skin that blistered in the cold. You could see him vibrate and radiate the torment he was under as his soul silently screamed out to you, shaking like the glossy tears in his eyes.

But underneath it all he was still the same man you saw on that balcony, hair and eyes glowing in the moonlight and the cool air.

The same one you stole away because you couldn’t bear to be without, grabbing his hand and running through the tower.

The same man you shouted “I love you” to out of anger and wanting in your garden at twilight, his own feelings held back because you couldn’t bear the thought of rejection.

The same one who said he loved you back, sweet and intense and all-consuming as he kissed your skin and wrapped you up in his embrace.

The same one, who when with you and touched you, couldn’t contain his abilities as flowers and life flooded every inch of space and bound you together.

The same one you asked to marry you, kissing every inch of your skin and holding you tightly from dusk til dawn as he worshipped and made you forevermore his.

The same one that became your husband in the sweetest, most completely perfect moment of your life, giving you a symbol of that love you still held with you.

The very same one you would love if you died here and now. And the very same one you would love every moment for the rest of eternity if you were thrown into the pit to be endlessly tortured.

Slowly and without your consent, your muscles finally began to relax, one by one giving up and giving in to the torment.

“Bucky… ‘S okay honey…” you slurred, hoping he would know.

All you wanted right now was for him to know that this was alright. That he could do this, and it would be alright. You were too far gone, but he could still make it through this. He _had_ too.

You felt a kick to your shoulder and your body was pushed to lie on your back. Pierce was above you, gun still aimed at your Bucky. You couldn’t help but let your face crumple and fresh tears fill your eyes. Pierce had stabbed you with gods know what and it made you wonder painfully what was in that gun. What secret damage could those bullets really do to your love?

“Let ‘im… let ‘im live…” you tried to say, words broken and half unformed. “Don’ hurt ‘im… Plea-please.”

“I wouldn’t give up something so valuable Y/N,” he said, looking down to you. The blurred lines of his face was the last thing you saw before your eyes closed and darkness covered you, mind still distantly turning. “I can assure you that he’ll be living for a very long time. We have some great plans for the Underworld, don’t we Bucky?”

“Please, let her go!” he half sobbed in grief and half yelled in fury. As much as you tried to look at him one last time, you just couldn’t open your eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want, just let her _go_!”

“I won’t ask again,” Pierce commanded deeply from above. “Do it, soldier. Before she’s gone forever. Before _you_ let her die.”

If more was said, you couldn’t hear it. If the others finally came to help or fight or die, you didn’t know. If the open doors of Tartarus were spilling things from the depths, you couldn’t tell. Your existence was all just darkness and anguish now.

It could have been instantly or it could have been an eternity later, but at some point you felt light fingers brush your skin. They were familiar, the nostalgia of gentle caresses blooming under their touch. They traveled along your shoulder, smooth and careful.

You felt another at your waist, sliding along the blood-soaked armour and wrapping softly around you between your back and the ground. The touches at your shoulder moved, slipping down behind your neck as you felt your body lift.

Your head lulled back as firm arms supported behind your back and under your knees, carrying you close. You couldn’t feel the air around you- not even the bitter chill- but felt the sway of your lifeless arm as you were moved.

For a moment you stopped still.

You could smell that floral scent you loved dearly, mixed in with sweat and cedar and rain and blood. You felt the light breath of air cascading down your cheek. You felt the soft feel of lips on your skin, dragging lightly across your jaw before reaching your lips. You felt the light pressure of a kiss against your mouth, before if turned deeper to something needier. You felt the wet drops of tears fall to your face. You felt the vibrating sob from the chest that was pressed against you.

Then you felt nothing but bitter, biting cold.


	21. Shock

Suspended on a jagged plateau of rock you laid, just mere inches before the straight drop down into the black depths of this pit. On the sharp unrelenting surface you were unable to do much but realize in horror what was happening to you.

An indescribable cold had latched itself to your feet, moving up your legs. Almost like claws grabbing and digging into you, it felt as though every latch of the harsh temperature on your flesh was the very atoms of your body being stabbed with the sharpest slivers of ice. It crawled and spread up your body, shaking and growing and hungry to devour every last shred of you.

The cold knocked the air from you as it was trying to escape the bitter frigidity binding you like a vice from all sides and stunning you to a painful wakefulness against your battle-worn will. You could almost hear the snaps and crinkles and cracks from it as it moved in a greedy cascade up your body.

When it hit your side you arched back, wild eyes flashing open with soon to be frozen tears, hearing the sizzle as it came into contact with the blazing heat of your wound. You clenched your jaw so tightly to try and brace yourself through the pain as the two forces battled it out, thinking your teeth would shatter or bones crack in half at the pressure. But with shuddering effort the piercing chill of Tartarus won out and sealed up the wound like a tight, unwanted, and suffocating tourniquet. It didn’t end the pain you were feeling from it, but stopped it in its tracks and kept it in a holding pattern: never increasing and never decreasing. The bitter ice that penetrated you stopped your cells still and cold; a stasis that would keep you as you were for the rest of eternity.

With the shock to your system, edging up your spine and creeping along your stomach, you had what you knew would be your last chance to focus beyond this torment. Before the arctic cold of Tartarus took you for good.

You grasped the cutting stone you were laying on with one hand in weak determination, the other moving in uneven, jolting movements down your body. You had one goal, as there was one last thing you could do to provide you with the smallest yet most meaningful of comforts. If you could just reach it, could just hold on long enough…

Your cheek shifted across the rough black stone, eyes set in heavy eyelids lifting up. You saw the sight in front of you, seeming so very far away: a blurred image of Bucky, his dark features silhouetted by hazy heat colliding with the bitter cold in a mist. Pierce just behind and to the side of him, whispering words into his ear that you couldn’t hear. What you could make out though was his gun trained on the back of Bucky’s head.

The cold was practically up to your shoulders now, but with the last vestige of strength, you pulled your arm up and slammed your hand back to the stone with your small and final victory pulled up from your pocket.

The clear and hard material clanged loudly against the stone, unscathed and unbroken. Your fingers tried to grip it steady, but they were shaking and felt so unlike you as the raw cold began to claw up your shoulders now.

Between the gaps of your fingers you could see glimpses of the small token you clung to of little white petals suspended in clear shining glass. The little and the last piece of Bucky you would have with you. You would hold onto it and cling to it, hoping beyond hope that endless time wouldn’t steal away your memories of him or drain the feel of his warmth from your mind.

Caught up in your last attempt, you didn’t see Bucky’s eyes on the little medallion there and couldn’t see the pain in them. You didn’t see that pain turn to anguish as Pierce whispered something into his ear, the gun shifting from Bucky to you. You didn’t hear Bucky wildly scream your name through the haze.

At that moment, time almost seemed to slow. You didn’t know if it was the pit of Tartarus or maybe your drained body and mind. As the next few moments happened around you, you couldn’t be sure if they were real or a deranged vision of your dying, tortured mind.

It started as a distant feeling of sharp, heated pricks your fingertips. Slowly your eyes slanted to your hand and that small token of affection. As the cold seized your throat you couldn’t so much as cry out as you saw the bright glints of glass shards erupt from the medallion without apparent cause

It broke and crumbled before your eyes, the last reminder you had of your endless, reckless love for Bucky. A love that brought you here. Shattered and broken, it left you feeling the same as your broken heart somehow broke more deep in your frozen chest.

Underneath your hand something moved, rising up from the broken pieces as with delicate clinks of sound they fell away. A soft familiar feeling hit your palm amid the golden blood that pooled from your cut fingertips. It spread quickly across your skin, your hand moving automatically to hold onto it. You were desperate to hold onto anything.

But quickly it grew, becoming too large to keep grasp of. It erupted under your hand and overtook it, the cause for the movement finally coming into view.

An explosion of white petals on black vines and deep green leaves unfurled faster than your eyes could track, as time suddenly sped up beyond what you could rationalize in your state. Within a moment they grew and spread like wildfire, expanding out like the flames had hit gasoline, bursting across every surface. The vines took root, cracking into the jagged rock like paper, crawling up and spreading out.

The earth itself was rumbling, vibrating through your bones with such force you were shaken farther down the sharp stones, fabric and skin catching and tearing as you went.

The icy air was punctuated by the intense floral of the flowers, first tens then thousands, vines like thick ropes and limbs covered with piercing black thorns that shot out as though to their defense.

Raising your hand before the cold could overtake you, your fingers held on to one of the branches, grip loose as it flowed and grew. The snaps and cracks and rumbles were now not little sounds in your mind from the cold but a booming cacophony from the rupture of foliage overtaking everything within reach. As it morphed and exponentially grew you struggled to see through the brambles and petals as you looked up to the cause of this display.

_ Bucky. _

His name caught in your throat as his visage changed almost before your eyes. The bleeding and broken state you had seen through blurred vision was gone, another drastically different one in his place.

Bucky stood, shining black brambles with thick thorns and cascades of white petals all around him. But looking out, something had changed. His eyes, the ones you loved and were drawn in by time and time again, were not the same.

Another colour stood in place of the ocean blue and galaxy swirls that you knew. But the colour they shone with was familiar all the same, though you couldn’t place it. A deep glacial blue was painted in a swath across his eyes, covering the deep blue irises and whites of them. It took over and shone with hard fervour, framed by his stumbled jaw and deep brown locks that were painted in sweat.

And painted across his brow and chestnut hair was something beginning to form. Looking down you watched as a rapid stream of gold began to melt and slide up his arm, slithering in dripping wisps across the silver metal and curve of his shoulder. It moved to his head, surrounding his brow like that of a halo. As it formed, white flowers and thin black vines encircled with it, weaving into the shining gold.

_ A crown. _

The briefest of memories flashed in your mind. The taste of an apple. The feel of his hand holding yours. A look of bliss shining in his eyes. The gold of your crown melting and binding to him. A piece of you to carry with him always.

Now the simultaneous heat and cold pushed through the air like crashing waves from him, fury etching the lines of his face and chest heaving with breath. The next thing that hit you was the sound of shots ringing in a painful echo around you. You felt yourself trying to scream but couldn’t. You couldn’t see Pierce through the thickening vines, couldn’t know what risk he posed or if his bullets connected to Bucky or were designed for you or even another god.

Shifting farther down where you uselessly lay, you felt the rumbling rising up from below increasing, newfound terror sparking in you and adding into the chaos. That rumble carried with it a snarling wail from down into the pit, yet not deep enough. Whoever was coming up the pit walls was getting closer. Body all but frozen now you couldn’t reach out and grip the brambles harder as it continued to spring up like a thick barrier, quickly blocking you from view of both the god you loved and the god you hated.

You cursed and cried and swore to yourself, petrified of not knowing if Bucky was alive and unable to so much as form his name on your lips. The sound would be drowned out by the groaning and wailing coming up from below you.

A sharp biting sound joined in, threatening to burst your eardrums as your head still lay pressed to the rock. The split open ground could take little more of the intrusive greenery around you, beginning to break off in chunks around you. In mere moments the crumbling plateau you were on would take you with it into the dark pit with no hope for rescue, caught in the clutches of whoever was in here with you.

Through the thickening and towering brambles you saw light beyond the morphing vines groaning with life and breaking rock of the cavern. Across that dwindling light you saw the shadow of a figure looming at the edge, just inside on the line of the doorway.

With fear you tried to focus through your immobilizing terror, mind-crushing anguish and the thick foliage. The figure held something out to you, not able to breach the distance. Internally you wanted to flinch, to brace yourself for a bullet of your own from Pierce’s gun.

As you felt the ground under your feet then legs begin to crumble away, you heard no shot ring out. You heard no menacing final words. The overwhelming, assaulting sound of this chaotic environment beat through you, but above all that you heard his warped strangled words.

“ _ Please Y/N! _ ”

You saw a metal hand outstretched, Bucky holding on and braced by vines just on the edge of the opening. He was reaching to you, the sweeping blue of his eyes pooling with fear as the fury you had seen in them was overcome.

He struggled and tried with a deep groan to reach farther, his foot slipping briefly as a crack emerged where he was planted. Bucky stumbled and landed on his knees, reaching out with hands wide as he stretched to the limit of his body.

You knew you couldn’t move. Couldn’t get through that last little bit of distance to him. If tears could form you knew they would, though you could give nothing but a blank, cold stare in his direction, just out of reach of his safety.

You wanted again to tell him it was okay, that this was going to be the end and that was _ okay _ , but your mouth was frozen in a thin line. You wanted to tell him to run. To leave. Not to risk himself falling in the pit with you, or to get out and close the door before the thing crawling out could reach him, or to leave before Pierce- wherever he was and whatever he was doing- could hurt or trigger him again. You wanted to say so many things just to get him  _ safe _ .

Maybe he saw the shift in your eyes or felt the shift in the air, but with a growl from him you saw his determination double. The damn stubbornness you hated and loved made you want to scream out to stop him. It made you want to slip down faster; anything to save him from falling in with you.

But you heard the sound like that of a whip slicing through the air then felt a thrash of it hit your skin across the back of your legs. Quickly more followed as vines began to thrash and wrap around you, holding onto your body with their biting force. Petals flew around you like snowflakes in a white storm as they moved, swirling around and tumbling down into the blackness around and below you.

The ground beneath your stomach gave way with a gut-dropping jolt but you hardly moved, secured by those vines that grew and held you at his command. As they groaned and broke only to be replaced again and again, strained against the will of Tartatus, you wondered if it would be enough. 

But with another reverberating yell you saw Bucky come closer into view, his warm hand finally connecting with yours. He ripped you from your disintegrated spot, retching you through the snapping branches the moment he got hold of you. 

As you were harshing pulled from the pit, the raging heat and bright flames hit you like a wall as you crashed through the cold to the other side. Your body was airborne for just a moment before colliding with the heavy frame of Bucky, sending him back to the ground with you following, clasped tightly in his hold. Compared to the devastatingly isolated feel of the pit, it felt like every inch of you was enveloped by his arms before you could so much as take a breath of the free air.

He sat, kneeling on the floor with your frozen body covered by his, his radiating warmth overtaking the pitiful fan of cold air hissing from out your lungs as your cheek was pressed flushed against his chest. Again you heard cracks and splinters, unsure if it was the icy frost thawing your skin and bones and organs or the veritable Spring that had beaten the odds and bloomed in the heart of the Underworld.

He held you still and silent, the assaulting shock of what could have been your last moments together seizing you both at having you back in his arms. The ability to function and move again began seeping from the top of your head down your body in a slow tingly wave, and with it brought large pent-up tears to your eyes.

They fell down his torso silently as you were held by Bucky, whose fingers were blissfully hard and grip unrelentingly strong, holding you as a shaking spread out from your spine across every extremity. 

Those tears mixed with the golden blood pouring down his chest from a bullet hole under the cold press of your cheek.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're not quite at the end here yet! There's more story to tell and lots of loose ends to wrap up so hang on!


	22. Calling Out

You wondered how long you had heard it, the sounds swimming through the thick fog of your mind. The quiet shushes were lost to the shock you were numbed by.

You thought you should be cold but it was like you were burning with heat. Thought you should be dying but you felt your heart beating and pulse pumping. Thought you should be alone and untouchable, but you were tightly held against a comforting presence. What you thought _should_ be directly contrasted what _was_ and created a deep haze in your mind.

“‘S’okay, love,” he whispered to you, the sound falling from his mouth slow and slurred. “Shh, ‘m here… ‘S’okay.”

Everything all at once was too much to reconcile, so just little manageable bits came back piece by piece. The sound of his voice. The slow foggy burn of the too hot air. The soft and pleasant kind of warmth coming from him. The vibrating under your legs stretched out behind you as vines grew, now only slowing blooming. His arms binding you in while rough hands stroked your skin and entwined gently in your hair, face pressed to his chest.

Once your tears slowed, then stopped, the next little piece that came back was the fact that the wet feel on your cheek didn’t stop. Drips kept seeming to flow to your jaw then neck. Blinking slowly you tried to move your head as his quiet words and shushes were the next bit to cut through the haze.

You opened your mouth to speak, to call for him or cry or just anything, but a liquid glossed over your lips and dripped into your mouth. It stopped you short of speaking, tasting something light and metallic, soft and bitter.

Without realizing the stiff pain of your body or listening to your screaming muscles, your hands went to Bucky’s chest, pushing weakly back as you struggled to keep your head up without the support of his chest. Your brows were pulled down, the taste on your tongue sending a bolt of fear and confusion through you, but you couldn’t pull together the thought of why.

Raising your eyes, you fought the push of Bucky’s hand on the back of your head as he tried to keep you as close to him as possible. You ended up not reaching his eyes, but looking straight ahead to his chest not more than a couple inches directly in front of you.

_Blood._

You saw it, tricking down in a steady stream from the centre of your line of sight. It came from a fleshy, ragged hole whose little diametre was filled with the golden liquid. Without thinking your hand went to your cheek, fingertips smeared with his blood that was painted across the side of your face.

You felt your own chest constrict, your hand sliding up to Bucky’s shoulder to grip him tightly, your wheezing breath increasing. Your body reacted in panic before you emotionally felt it or could cognitively process it, but the weight of what this was hit you all at once.

With strength almost not of your own, you suddenly began to scramble, sitting up taller and hands clumsily hitting his chest, moving across the blood-slicked fabric to put pressure on the wound. You didn’t know what you were doing, just knowing that you had to do _something_. Your eyes scanned him and dizzyingly looked around you trying to find something you couldn’t put a word too, as though a lifeline would just appear out of nowhere.

“N-no…” You heard your voice squeak out, raspy and hoarse and barely heard as it forced through the receding pain in your throat. “No… no… _no_ ….”

You hands pushed and squelched, fumbling and frantic in their need to stop what had already happened. Bucky’s hand grabbed your wrists, firm and unmoving, and weakly you fought against them, only then catching sight of him. It stopped you still.

Beads of sweat had damped his hair and rolled down his face, but the misty billow of air leaving his lungs was cold. His eyes were a mix of that glacial blue, swirling and moving, but you knew those eyes like they were your own, and even you could see that they weren’t focused. He was dazed, probably in shock and beginning his descent into succumbing to his wounds. The moonbeam glow of his aura was all but gone, replaced with a dull grey and sallow palour.

You must have looked no better in your thrashed half-obliterated state, yet fixed with the vision of Bucky- _your Bucky_ \- like this, you rustled up a will to survive from the depths of your soul. Because the personification of that will was in front of you, hurting and maybe already dying. That was enough for adrenalin to pump through your stiff frosty veins and for you to place an unyielding demand on your own mind to just fucking do something.

The first thing you did was start to breathe deeply, taking in air faster and faster until it hurt in your chest and then still again and again until it didn’t. You willed your arms to feel like your own again, and legs to move at your command again. You blinked the mind-made cobwebs from your vision and looked around to your surroundings, trying to fit together the puzzle pieces of how the hell you had even gotten this deep into hell.

For a few seconds you weren’t even sure this _was_ hell, with the amount of life that had erupted through it. A veritable garden had grown as though creating more a lush oasis than the hardened and volcanic cavern of the Underworld. Green leaves were everywhere, still thought slowly growing as the vines and brambles they sprouted from weaved and overtook the expansive hallway you were sitting in. They were punctuated by innumerable white shots of starlight, as pure and practically glowing flowers blossomed. You could almost hear the delicate melody that they sang as they unfurled and bloomed, the whole corridor filled with the sweetest of perfumes.

Turning your head, the next thing you saw was just as remarkable, but much more gruesome.

Captured in those delicate blooms and gripping vines, was Pierce.

He was elevated off the ground but kneeling. Wrapped and surrounded completely by those brambles, he was suspended by them. You took in his state, the last months of memories coming back and driving out the last of your confused haze.

Legs bent and arms outstretched, he couldn’t so much as move as vines wrapped and tightened enough to break skin and squeeze the muscles underneath like a snake choking its prey. They were covered in thick black thorns that shredded and ripped across him, coating his body in gold. But they didn’t just encircle him and surround him and coat him as though he was made into this wall of brambles himself, but pierced right through his flesh.

Weaving like thread through fabric, the vines with their thorns had stabbed through him, weaving up and through his legs and thighs, piercing his torso and skewering his organs. The branches had driven themselves through his chest, and arms and down to his hands. You could see the bumpy, snake-like look of them under his strained skin as they had forced their way in. One had pierced the side of his throat, digging in and existing out of his mouth as his head was looking up, suspended there with blood oozing from him like drool.

No flowers grew on those vines, but those dark green leaves did, near hiding the very few parts of him that weren’t stabbed. Golden blood dripped like the last drops of rain from their tapered points.

The sight took your breath away for several moments, lost in the vision of this man. He wasn’t dead- not yet- as you saw his fingers shake and twitch through the leaves, eyes rolled back but lids fluttering. You could smell death on him though, and you knew it wouldn’t be long, perhaps just mere minutes. At any rate, he was not going anywhere, of that you absolutely knew. When he did die and if you got out here, he would be waiting for your judgement, reduced down to a case file.

Pierce, with his iron will and cunning mind, was the God of Strength and Sovereign Rule.

But even so, when it came down to it, he was no match for Bucky. With his combination of both pure, stubborn, and life-giving Spring matched with his knew-found and forceful powers of being the King of the Underworld, Bucky was stronger and his sovereignty here unequivocal. To the point of being more powerful than Pierce.

All Bucky had needed was a spark of life to save you and launch a full-blown Spring in the one place where abilities were drained from the gods who entered. He loved you too much, was too stubborn to let you go, and with the little flower he had given you as a spark to create this garden, was too powerful even for the likes of anyone, perhaps even you. A mix of life and death, it looked as though he was ruled by both and yet neither.

In silence you looked back to your husband, wrists still held though loosely as he watched you. Because even though he was strong, he wasn’t impervious. And Pierce may have gotten one last final, brutal revenge in the form of a single bullet slowly tearing Bucky away from you.

“He won’t hurt you, Y/N,” Bucky said quietly, blinking slow and not quite able to keep a steady gaze through the icy blue of his unfocused eyes. “I won’t let ‘im hurt you anymore.”

“Bucky,” you whispered, his name escaping through the crushing of your heart.

You had done so much to try and protect him, and he was here, trying to protect you. It broke your heart over and over as though stuck in the timeless loop of the Tartarus pit, frozen and anguished. He tried again to pull you in closer, needing you close to know you were alright, but with a crumpled look on your face, you resisted yet again.

Strength somewhat growing, at least compared to your state a few minutes ago, you knew you couldn’t just stay wrapped up in his arms, even if that was what he wanted. Even if that was all you wanted.

He had done the impossible for you, so you were going to do the impossible for him. You were going to get him out of this prison alive. You never thought loving someone would be this deadly or this violent, but you were not going to give up now. Not him; not ever.

As though on cue, a rumble roared from behind you, and like nails on a chalkboard you heard the shredding claws of something getting close.

Eyes wide you pulled your hands back harshly, Bucky only holding tighter to resist. You shifted on the ground, sitting up and moving to get leverage as you ripped your wrists away from him. His groan at the loss of holding you was lost above the dreadful echoing noise, but you could see the pain on his face.

With shaking breath you turned from him, crawling through the tangle of vines on the ground back towards the door.

Your stomach turned and you fought screaming at the top of your battered lungs against going any closer. Your skin crawled and jaw clenched and every primal self-preserving piece of you thrashed wildly like a wounded animal trapped in a cage. Crawling closer to the doorway to the pit, you quaked in your own skin as the remembered trauma of that frozen, brutal place stabbed every inch of you. You couldn’t handle being so close, or risk falling in, or be thrown back in there from some evil unseen force your mind turned up.

You fought back tears, hands forming fists on the ground as you went on, reaching the edge of the large swung open door. Flowers and leaves covered it, but through that soft feel and prickling thorns you felt the tough edge of the stone under your palms.

Uselessly you pushed, trying to get the door to budge. And budge it did, but not much more than that. You groaned, using it as leverage to push yourself to your feet, which slipped across the stone floor as you kept pushing.

“Bucky”, you said, breath heaving as you turned your head, resting your body against the door, part by need and part to keep you anchored away from the gaping dark maw of the pit’s frigid entrance. Fear shook through you as limbs and hands and lips quivered, but you promised yourself you weren’t giving up, no matter what. But you couldn’t do it alone. “Can you… can you help?”

His breath was laboured too but he nodded, ice blue eyes only half-lidded. Instead of standing or moving to help, he let himself slowly fall backwards, laying flat on his back.

You opened your mouth to call for him, but with renewed energy you felt the vines and leaves around your hands begin to move. Quickly the greenery around you and that covered the stone cell door moved and twisted, pulling and pushing the thick barrier. With a grinding shriek, the stone door began to shift across the floor, inch by inch.

With a whistling seal of air, the door closed as your back was pressed against it. Like a twitch you just nodded to yourself a moment, shaking hands pressed against your chest as the fear and anxiety rolling through you unchallenged in the sudden silence. It took a moment before even Bucky came back into view through that fear.

Without thinking or looking you launched yourself off of the door and stumbled back to Bucky, practically collapsing on him. His eyes were still somewhat open but the blood still poured out from his chest. You gripped his shoulder and one hand hovered above his wound, unsure what to do as your anxiety quickly took a backseat to the fear of his injury.

Was the bullet made of the same thing you were stabbed with? Would he suffer the same as you should have? Or was it something else, as Bucky wasn’t exactly wholly of the living realm or the dead realm now? With Pierce as he was now, there was no way to know for sure.

Reflexively your hand moved to your side, only lightly touching your stab wound as quickly you tried to think.

The chill of the Tartarus doused the heat of life that had been eating away at your being like acid. Your stab wound was gaping now: blackened purple edges across glistening frosty flesh, spotted with golden blood. But it was over, the undead death of the pit and your realm too strong to let something from the living world take you under. It had been the best and worst place to be, stopping the injury in its tracks. You were too pained and worried about Bucky to be grateful at the moment. Your mind was on what to do now, and how fast you could do it.

Reigning in the frazzles edges of your mind, you tried to think through the facts of your situation.

_The door is closed and nothing escaped. Pierce can’t leave and won’t survive. Bucky needs to leave so he can get help and survive. So I need to get him out of here, now. Pick him up, get moving, and get out._

With the vaguest of plans in place, you got to your knees, then to your feet, pulling up Bucky by the arm. He still was awake and had some strength left, and you would need every ounce of it to get out. You weren’t exactly in a place of strength yourself, though you tried not to think of that reality or the odds before you.

As you stood, Bucky put his flesh arm across your shoulders, his metal one reaching across his body to hold your hand. His clutched at it tightly, head turned to you and looking down, forehead pressed to your temple and breath rolling down your cheek. His movements, though deliberate, seemed almost more instinctual. He lived through the harrowing ordeal of being separated from you; he wasn’t about to let you go now, consciously or not.

“”S okay, love” you whispered,  repeating his words and swallowing thickly. “We’ll get out of here yet, okay? Just… Just hang on to me.”

As you stepped forward, Bucky following with the sound of snapping branches underfoot. As you went you squinted looking down the black stone cavern. It took a second, but you realized why it felt wrong; it was the wrong direction. But another sinking feeling hit you.

_The cell doors._

Looking down this ancient corridor lined with doors, you saw none of them open and felt no icy chill on your skin. It was a coldness you would never forget, and knew it would haunt you for as long as you managed to stay alive.

But you knew you should double-check. You should take the time to make sure, walking the whole vast distance to ensure that Pierce had only gotten as far as you had. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? There was no way from the time you first heard the tell-tale rumbles to when you made it here that he had opened the doors farther than you had reached.

Because you wouldn’t make it far if the evil in here came after you. But Bucky might not make it at all if you did check to make sure.

But like yet another shocking and bitter slap to the face, another thought had your head whipping painfully back towards the entrance.

_Thor!_

Suddenly you remembered the gods who were brave and stubborn and stupid enough to enter in here with you. Abandoning the cautious and nauseating idea of making sure every cell door was in fact closed, you turned and began walking with stumbling steps down towards where your friends should be, each door down stealed firmly shut as you went.

Had there been anyone else in here, someone under Pierce’s command that got to them? Threw them in a pit and locked them inside? Oh gods, you weren’t sure you could get them out, not like this, not with Bucky. Your mind was racing, going a mile a minute in sheer panic to try and find a solution to every possibility of the latest unknown.

In the meantime you dragged yourself and Bucky stumbling across what looked like a field of blooms in front of you. Each step felt like your feet were made of lead and the heavy jolt of it beat through your legs like a drum. Determined and panting, you pushed yourself forward in a steady rhythm, accompanied by the beating of your breath and the crinkle of leaves as you stepped.

That steady pulse was almost stopped short as you almost wavered, thinking you heard something, getting so close to the entrance into this place. With the pulsing in your ears you couldn’t be sure if it was the sound of your blood now beginning to flow through you with what felt like aggressive normalcy again or not. Continuing on, you didn’t get more than a few feet before you heard the rustling again.

This time you stopped at the small sound and pulled Bucky back to you as his momentum fought to keep him moving forward. His hold on you tightened and with a lull his head moved to look at you.

“Y/N,” he said almost desperately, speech more slurred as he struggled to get even closer.

As much as you wanted him attached to you and unable to ever let go, you squirmed and pivoted, seeing around the hulking god you loved to the depths of hell (and hopefully back). You heard another type of rustling again, unable to see where it was coming from.

Looking at the lush floor at your feet, blooms and leaves hiding them from view, it dawned on you.

You couldn’t find them and couldn’t see them because they were covered.

Grabbing Bucky’s flesh hand, with effort you lifted it up and over your head, hooking your arm in his as you clutched onto him but wasn’t pinned to him. Looking around the ground, you scanned and turned in circles, trying to spot something.

_There!_

An amorphous lump covered in green and white and black was ten or so feet away, about the shape and size of a person. You immediately lurched the both of you forward, knees accidentally crashing hard to the floor and taking Bucky down with you just before the shape.

You dropped Bucky’s arm and began to shred the vines and leaves and flowers with your hands, scrambling to pull off the snapped foliage as fast as you could.

_Tony._

A metallic red flash shone from somewhere under the plants and with newfound frantic determination you pulled and ripped up the greenery. Bucky beside you leaned back on his knees, exhausted and out of it. He didn’t understand and didn’t have the energy to clue in, stuck in a similar haze you had been in.

Looking and feeling around, you felt one of Tony’s arms, stretched out over his head and buried underneath the thorned thicket that had grown over him. He must have collapsed- you assumed now they all had- but you need to know if they were alive. Your gut said yes, but forcing your hand through the branches, you reached down for his neck, feeling not the hard metal but the softness of flesh.

Two of your fingers pressed to his pulse point, waiting with held breath for confirmation.

A languid, slow pulse beat out pathetically, just barely hanging on.

Tony was strong, fierce, and a fighter- they all were- but he wasn’t going to last and you knew they would all share the same fate.

You began tearing the tangle of vines away from his body like some deranged gardener, stopping as the searing in your lungs begged you to take a break. You had barely managed to make a dent in uncovering him and you just didn’t have the time. Not to get him, then Thor and Steve, and find Natasha and Clint who hopefully were still alive too. Bloody hands braced against your knees before you pulled one through your hair, knowing this was a losing game. Pierce was gone but somehow you were still _losing_.

Because so what if you got Tony or any of them free? How were you supposed to get them out of here alone? Then face practically a whole prison of escaped inmates alone, somehow with six unconscious or dying or delirious gods in tow…

_One thing at a time, just do the one next step you need to do_ , you thought to yourself, trying to ground your emotions into something practical before you totally lost it to the impossibility of this situation.

The only thing you absolutely knew was that you needed Bucky. You needed his help, needed him to be okay, needed to save him.

With anguish in your eyes you looked behind to your husband, voice as steady and clear as you could make it, but you didn’t have the energy or strength to spare him the torment in your eyes that was ripping you apart.

“They can’t be here,” you said, trying to get to the point and hoping he would understand through the pain and drain of a bullet wound to his chest. “Your friends. Our friends. They are here and they can’t be. They won’t survive down here. Steve will die, do you understand? I need you to find him, okay? We have to save him. All of them.”

As though drunk, Bucky nodded, slumping forward with his metal hand bracing himself against the ground. He didn’t speak, just letting the drips of sweat and blood pour from his skin. His flesh hand wrapped around his torso with a slight shake and you saw his eyes pinch closed. You reached out to hold his shoulder, knowing that whatever comfort you could give now just wouldn’t be enough. He needed more than you could give.

You waited, your heart silently begging him with an unspoken “please”. You needed him, needed his help if he was able to give it.

A few beats passe before, just like when you needed help to close the door, the vines around you began to shift. Like unseen hands pulling them, the greenery began to pull back from the ground, flowing away and climbing up the walls like smooth streams of water defying gravity. The only thing left in its rustling wake was the bodies of three gods, sprawled out and unmoving on the ground.

Tony was just in front of you, his stiff metal suit covering him up to his neck, absolutely drenched in sweat. The navy blue-uniformed frame and blonde hair of Steve was just behind and cross the hall from you, and you saw the slight periodic beat of breath leaving him. Thor was a few feet beyond that, deep red cape strewn across him and turned away from you.

With bitter pride and a plummeting heart, you saw they had closed the rest of the doors you hadn’t.

Your attention shot back to Bucky as suddenly he slumped to the side with a heavy ringing thud, hitting his head hard against the unyielding stone ground. Not only a panicked shake shot to your soul but a flooding dose of dread followed it. You had asked too much. You had been too weak to do it yourself, both care for him and save the others.

You crawled to him, the rough rock of the ground catching the pulls of skin the thorns had cut on your palms. You took hold of him, hands clinging to him like he had clung to you, desperate and needy. As you looked down to him, you struggled to even keep breathing, feeling a gripping loneliness so akin to when you were in the pit. You couldn’t bear that, couldn’t bear the thought of this all ending here.

Without Bucky, and without your friends, and without the gods and goddesses of the Underworld separated from you by hordes of raging prisoners, there was one single name slipped painfully passed your lips. It was a plea, lost in the thick dead air around you.

“Cerberus,” you whispered.

Your hands slid up Bucky, going to his face and moving his head to look at you, cradling him gently as you leaned over him, the tip of your nose to his. His eyes were closed, breath ragged and deeply gargled. You own darted back and forth, desperate to catch even the slightest sign that he would bounce back and be okay, but Bucky gave none.

You fought to pull up your own power, to feel the crackle its electricity in your veins and feel the all-consuming charge of dominance it formed in and around you. But between Tartarus, the trauma of the pit, and the disintegration of your energy from your wound, you didn’t have a hope to be able to capture it.

“Cerberus,” you said louder, still looking down.

Fingers digging in deeper to his flesh, Bucky didn’t so much as move, only those slow laboured breaths falling from his mouth to indicate he was even alive.

“ _Cerberus_!” you all but yelled, a shrill rasp to the edge of your voice.

You looked up to the entrance with eyes transfixed on the doorway, speaking as though he was here, like he could hear you. And maybe he couldn’t, but maybe he could feel you, somehow. But maybe you would just die here with your love and your friends.

“I don’t know where you are but I need you, ‘Berus.”

Your eyes instantly welled with tears and your face crumpled, moving down to the false safety and real comfort of Bucky, leaning over him and pressing your cheek to his shoulder as your nose brushed his neck. He didn’t move at all while you curled into him, not even to hold you closer.

“I know it’s scary and it’s hard and maybe it’s impossible,” you whispered, not sure if you were talking to Cereberus, yourself, or Bucky at this point. “But you need to be here, okay? You need to break through whatever it is holding you back, and just be here. You can do it, I know you can. We’ve faced worse, right?”

You lifted your head, tears falling from your bloodshot eyes. You searched for a sign of him waking, of him quirking his brow and looking down to you with a smirk, for his fingertips to brush against your cheek and a loving devotion whispered in your ear. You imagined you were laying down in your garden, wrapped up in him as you watched golden pollen float through the air and felt the twilight breeze flow across your skin.

“Please,” you whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fingers crossed our favourite Good Boi comes through! ALSO ding dong, the dick is dead! At least he’s shish-kabobed and isn’t going anywhere. Straight out killing him would be too nice. He’s gotta suffer a lil bit more ya know.
> 
> My plan for the ending is ever-evolving, so not sure the exact number of chapters left, but it isn’t many.
> 
> If you like this chapter, please let me know! Thanks darlings!


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